Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Amethi on Sunday to set the ball rolling for various projects worth Rs 11, 856.47 crore in the Congress bastion.
It will be Modi’s first visit as the PM to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s Lok Sabha constituency. The PM is also scheduled to dedicate Indo-Russia Rifles Private Limited, a joint venture (JV) between an ordnance factory and a Russian firm. It will manufacture Kalashnikov rifles in the Korwa ordnance factory in Amethi. BJP leaders said, it would bring in local employment.
Among the other projects are a steel processing unit in Jagdishpur worth Rs 9,200 crore, upgradation of Amethi bus station and reconstruction of depot workshop worth Rs 496.80 crore, construction of rest houses and shops at Amethi bus station, worth Rs 139 crore and construction of main building of primary health centre worth ₹167 crore.
Congress leaders alleged the local administration was busy whitewashing the walls around Modi’s rally venue at Kauhar in Amethi. They claimed that the officials and BJP cadre cleaned the walls carrying slogans hailing local MP and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi as ‘future PM’.
In adjacent Rae Bareli — the Lok Sabha constituency of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi — hoardings carrying the slogan ‘toot jayega danka, phuss ho jayegi Priyanka (the hype won’t last as Priyanka Gandhi’s bubble would burst)’ have come up, Congress leaders said. “The BJP’s dirty tricks department is behind it. It’s clear that the BJP is getting desperate now,” said Congress leader Piyush Mishra.
“We expect nearly 1.5 lakh people,” said senior party leader Govind Narayan Shukla. On May 5, 2014, Modi — then the BJP’s PM candidate — had broken the unwritten code of top leaders avoiding campaigning in constituencies of the counterparts of rival parties.