State leaders will play a key role in Bharatiya Janata Party's bid to capture power in Uttar Pradesh as the party on Thursday announced details of its four 'Parivartan Yatras' which will start from various corners of the state between November 5-9.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address six regional meetings during the 192-day-long exercise ending in December 24, while Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Kalraj Mishra, two leading saffron faces from the state, will be the key speaker at 10 meetings each.
BJP president Amit Shah will address 10 other rallies. The party has planned 30 rallies of its national leaders. Uma Bharti will attend six of them. Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was joined by two other senior party leaders -- Bhupendra Yadav and Anil Jain -- at a press conference on Thursday where details of the yatra were given.
The four yatras will converge in Lucknow on December 24 after traversing over 17,000 km, Prasad said. The first yatra will start from Saharanpur on November 5, second from Jhansi on November 6 and third and fourth from Sonbhadra and Balia on November 8 and 9, respectively.
Shah and Mishra will be present during the launch of all the four yatras, while Singh will be present at three venues, except Saharanpur.
“People’s participation and development will be central themes of the yatras,” Prasad said as he asserted that it would see participation from Panchayat to Parliament members. BJP has 71 Lok Sabha MPs from the state which has 80 seats.
BJP allies Ram Vilas Paswan and Ramdas Athawale, two Dalit faces of the National Democratic Alliance, and Uprendra Kushwaha will also be joining the yatras.
Pitching for a BJP government in the state, Prasad said the state has suffered from corruption, lack of development and lawlessness as the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party took turns to rule it in the last 15 years.
Prasad also gave the slogan ‘purn bahumat, sampoorn vikas; bhajapa per hai vishwas’ (full majority, complete development; we have faith in BJP).