PM Modi to kickstart Bihar poll campaign from Samastipur on Oct 24

PATNA: undercoat government minister Narendra Modi testament kickstart his run for the Bihar assemblage election on October 24 with a visit to Karpoori Gram, the birthplace of former chief minister Jannayak (people’s hero) Karpoori Thakur, who was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in January 2024, said state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal on Sunday.Modi will make six visits to the poll-bound state between October 24 and November 7 for campaigning.The two-phase polls are scheduled to be held on November 6 and 11.Modi will pay his respect to the Jannayak before addressing his first rally in Karpoori Gram in Samastipur on October 24. He will also address a rally in Begusari the same day.“The PM will also address public rallies at Muzaffarpur and Chapra on October 30,” said Jaiswal while sharing the PM’s itinerary with newspersons at a press conference on Sunday.“The PM is also scheduled to visit the state on November 2, 3, 6 and 7. Details of these rallies will be shared in the due course,” he said, without disclosing their locations. People familiar with the matter said the locations had been identified and sent to the PMO, but a final clearance was awaited even as the PM’s slot had been sealed.Union home minister Amit Shah is also expected to address around 25 public rallies. Almost the same number of rallies will be done by defence minister Rajnath Singh, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and other top leaders. A road map for this has been prepared, he said, according to an ANI report.The BJP has identified 40 star campaigners for the upcoming Bihar Assembly polls, signalling its intent to go all out in the high stakes political contest. Besides Modi and Shah, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Mohan Yadav and Delhi chief minister Rekha Gupta are also included in the star campaigners list for the Bihar polls.Bihar deputy chief ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal, Union minister Giriraj Singh and former Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ashwini Kumar Choubey have made it to the BJP star campaigners’ list.Other BJP names include Nityanand Rai, Radha Mohan Singh, Renu Devi, Prem Kumar, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjay Jaiswal, Nand Kishore Yadav, Sadhvi Niranjan and Vinod Tawde.The assembly elections will be held in two phases, with 121 seats going to polls on November 6 and voting scheduled in the remaining 122 constituencies on November 11. The results will be announced on November 14.