Free Ration Extension, Nitish’s Vulgar Statement, and Sanatan: PM Modi Revs Up BJP’s Campaign in MP – News18

In what seems to be a tight election, BJP’s chief campaigner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has stepped up his campaign in Madhya Pradesh.

By the end of Thursday, the Prime Minister would have done 10 rallies in the state in five days. In his three rallies on Wednesday, the PM appealed to the women voters to vote for the BJP, citing the extension of the free ration scheme for five more years and raising Nitish Kumar’s vulgar statement in the Bihar Assembly. He also raised the issue of ‘Sanatana’ and took on Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge for describing the PM, Shivraj Chouhan, ED, CBI and IT as the ‘Pandavas’ against whom the Congress was pitted.

The party is banking on the women voters to take it home in Madhya Pradesh and the PM’s campaign is also focussing on the same. In Guna, he made the crowd show him flashlights of their mobile phones if they supported his resolve to extend the free ration scheme for another five years beyond December.

Modi said the Congress could go to any court or the Election Commission to stop his announcement, but he won’t relent. BJP’s women workers at the Guna rally said they would be taking the PM’s message door-to-door.

The free ration offer comes in addition to the ‘Mukhyamantri Ladli Behana Yojana’ of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in which the sixth instalment of Rs 1,250 was transferred to 1.31 crore women in the state on Tuesday.

The PM also made a pitch for women’s dignity and respect, as he said Nitish Kumar had no shame and had made such a vulgar statement in front of women MLAs in the Assembly. Modi asked why other INDI alliance partners like the Congress had not condemned the words of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

Women cadres of the BJP said that the PM’s words would reflect in the MP campaign too as women across the board are offended by Nitish Kumar’s statement.

“Whoever had not heard of the statement now knows what the Bihar CM said, after the PM referred to it as shameful. Earlier too, senior Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh have used derogatory words for women. Priyanka Gandhi is campaigning in MP for the Congress but has not said a word condemning Nitish,” a group of BJP women supporters told News18.

Priyanka Gandhi has been campaigning for the last two days in Madhya Pradesh and Rahul Gandhi would be in the state, too, to resume his campaign on Thursday. With the PM stepping up his campaign with 4-5 rallies and road-shows planned post Diwali, the BJP is trying every move to keep its women voter intact in the polls.