Three days after inaugurating the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to launch his campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on Thursday.

PM Modi will virtually interact with first-time voters across 5,000 locations in the country on Thursday, which marks the National Voters Day. The programme, Namo Nav Matdata conference, being organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the BJP, hopes to reach one crore first-time voters between the age group of 18 and 25 years.

“The Namo Nav Matdata conference will take place tomorrow (Thursday) at 5,000 places in India. Registrations have been done for the youths to interact with Modiji. Lakhs of youth will interact directly with the PM tomorrow. This is the first time that a PM is interacting with first-time voters at this scale. One crore first-time voters will be touched,” BJYM national president and BJP MP Tejaswi Surya said on Wednesday.

Underlining the importance of the youth vote bank for the BJP, Surya said, “Youth voters played a major role in the election and re-election of Modiji. There are many youth-centric policies of this government. The new education policy has come after 36 years. There are new IIMs and IITs. Digital India, Start-up India, aerospace, the drone sector are growing, and the private sector has also been involved. Niti Aayog stated that around 25 crore people have come out of poverty.”

PM Modi is also set to inaugurate development projects worth more than Rs 19,100 crore in Bulandshahr in western Uttar Pradesh, where he will also address a rally. These projects include a 173-km-long double-line electrified section between New Khurja and New Rewari, a fourth rail line connecting Mathura-Palwal and Chipiyana Buzurg-Dadri sections, Indian Oil’s Tundla-Gawaria pipeline and an “integrated industrial township at Greater Noida (IITGN)”.

In a move that will have great symbolic value, the PM will also inaugurate a medical college in the name of former chief minister Kalyan Singh who was the BJP’s face at the peak of Ram Janmabhoomi movement in Uttar Pradesh.

Meanwhile, the PM will hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron — who will be the chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations — in Jaipur on Thursday evening. The topics of conversation are expected to be shoring up cooperation in areas of defence and security, trade, climate change, clean energy and mobility of students and professionals.

President Murmu address

President Droupadi Murmu will address the nation on the eve of the Republic Day at 7 pm on Thursday. In her first such address as President last year, Murmu had said that India has succeeded as a democratic republic because various creeds and different languages have not divided it, but only united the country. She had added, “That essence was at the heart of the Constitution, which has withstood the test of time.”

Murmu had also said that those who shaped the modern Indian mind had welcomed progressive ideas from abroad and from all directions. “Following the Vedic advice, let noble thoughts come to us from all directions,” she had said. Her message had also touched upon the Constitution-making process.

INDIA bloc tensions

Two new developments between the INDIA bloc partners that occurred on Wednesday might have far-reaching implications on how the seat-sharing talks between the already fraught allies could shape up.

First is the statement from West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday morning, ruling out any talks with the Congress and declaring that the TMC would go solo for the Lok Sabha polls.

Just hours later, Punjab CM and AAP leader Bhagwant Mann joined in, speaking in a similar voice, stating that his party will not stitch up an alliance with the Congress in the state.

Despite this “unravelling”, Manoj CG writes that the Congress, which is being blamed for the cracks in Bengal and Punjab, appeared hopeful of placating at least Mamata. As for Punjab, the Congress leadership appeared resigned to the fact that an alliance with the AAP was difficult.

Hours after Mamata declared that her party would contest the Lok Sabha polls alone in Bengal, sources in the Congress said its top leadership was trying to get in touch with her, and asserted that there would be at least a tactical alliance in the state. Seeking to placate her, the party said it could “not imagine” the INDIA bloc without Mamata. It also hung on to her remarks that she was determined to fight the BJP.

This is a big blow to not just to the Opposition but also to the Congress that had been aiming at becoming the prime partner in the alliance.

How the allies will douse these fires, who will take the lead, who will concede and budge, and what the major leaders of the alliance will say — all of this will be tracked very closely in the days to come.

Amid Rahul-Himanta standoff, Yatra to enter Bengal

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma Wednesday said the state police would arrest Congress leader Rahul Gandhi after the Lok Sabha elections, a day after an FIR was registered against him and other Congress leaders following a confrontation between people taking part in the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra and the Assam police.

On Wednesday, Assam DGP G P Singh said the case has been transferred to the state CID and a Special Investigation Team would be constituted “for a thorough and in-depth investigation”.

“We will arrest him after the Lok Sabha elections, if we do it now it will get very politicised. The SIT will do its investigation now… Yesterday there could have been a major incident going by how they had instigated the mob to break barricades. Before the Lok Sabha elections, we will not do much because we will be winning from Assam anyway and there’s no point in making too much political noise here. It’s better if the state remains peaceful,” said Sarma.

Wednesday was the seventh day of the Assam leg of Rahul’s Yatra, which has been fraught with confrontations between the participants and the state apparatus.

On Thursday, the Yatra will enter Cooch Behar in Bengal through the Assam-Bengal border. Two things will be tracked: how the Yatra fares on the final day of its Assam leg and how the TMC will receive the Congress in Bengal in the wake of the statements made by Mamata.

— With PTI inputs