Less than two weeks after his roadshow and rally in Thrissur, where he kicked off the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign in Kerala, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be back in the state for a two-day visit starting Tuesday as part of which he will review booth-level preparations and interact with local leaders for the polls two months from now.

This is the first time that the PM is holding an event for booth-level workers in Kerala. It indicates that the BJP is actively attempting to strengthen its cadre as it looks to break its jinx in the southern state. The party has never won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, which has swung between the Left and the Congress so far. The only time it won an Assembly seat was in 2016, but it lost this too to the CPI(M) in 2021.

Modi is slated to reach Kochi on Tuesday evening and hold a roadshow from the Maharaja college ground to the government guest house.

On Wednesday morning, the PM will take part in a pooja at the Sree Krishna temple, Guruvayur, in Thrissur. Following this, he will attend the wedding of the daughter of actor-turned-BJP leader Suresh Gopi, the party’s potential candidate from the Thrissur Lok Sabha seat and prime face, at the temple. Modi will then head to visit the Sree Ramaswami Temple at Thriprayar in the same district, and address a gathering of shakti kendra (booth) in-charges at the Marine Drive in Kochi on Wednesday evening.

After attending the party-related events, Modi will on Wednesday inaugurate three major infrastructure projects worth more than Rs 4,000 crore at the Cochin shipyard.

BJP Ernakulam district president K S Shaiju said about 50,000 party workers would take part in the road show on Tuesday, adding that approximately 7,000 booth in-charges would attend the meeting the following day. Party state president K Surendran said the PM’s visit would make the cadre “more enthusiastic”.

A BJP leader said the party will be focusing on “Modi’s guarantees’’ and the Centre’s developmental schemes to reach out to voters in Kerala. This was also the thrust of the address that the PM gave in Thrissur during his last visit on January 3 to a massive gathering of women, numbering about 2 lakh.

Meanwhile, the party is also pressing on with its Christian outreach programme. On Monday, Gopi, accompanied by family members to mark his daughter’s wedding, dedicated a golden crown to the famous Our Lady of Lourdes Metropolitan Cathedral church in Thrissur. The party had carried out a Sneha Yatra to connect with the Christian community, which constitutes about 18% of the population, between December 22 and December 31 this year.

Thrissur figures prominently in the PM’s itinerary yet again because it is among the handful of seats the BJP is hoping to bag this time to open its account in Kerala.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had fielded Gopi from the seat and garnered 28.2% of the vote share as against veteran party leader K P Sreesan’s 11.15% in 2014. It hopes Gopi’s star status can help the party bump up its vote share.

Another parliamentary constituency where the BJP fancies its chances is Thiruvananthapuram, where the Congress’s Shashi Tharoor is likely to seek a fourth straight term. Even though Tharoor remains popular, the BJP is taking heart from the fact that it was the runner-up here the last two times.

The BJP is also said to be focussing on Pathanamthitta in central Kerala, which was the epicentre of the Sabarimala protests. Surendran had contested from here in 2019. The party is also eyeing Attingal in Thiruvananthapuram. While the Left dominated the seat till the Congress’s Adoor Prakash wrested it from them in 2019, the BJP’s woman face in the state, Shobha Surendran, secured 24.18% of the votes in 2019.