Almost two weeks ago, at a public event in UP’s Bulandshahr, this is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi had to say about media reports speculating he would blow the poll bugle from the stage. “Modi never needed to blow the election bugle. For Modi, the people themselves blow that bugle. And when they do so, Modi does not have to spend his time blowing the election bugle. He sits at the feet of people and works for them with ‘sewa bhaav (spirit of service)’,” he said.

But in Parliament on Monday, the PM used the occasion of replying to the President’s address, arguably his last speech in the 17th Lok Sabha, to launch a fierce attack on the Congress and unequivocally spell out his party’s Lok Sabha election target. “I can gauge the mood of the nation, it will definitely give NDA more than 400 seats and the BJP at least 370 seats,” he said.

Modi singled out the Congress and the Gandhis during his 90-minute speech, hardly bringing up the INDIA bloc that he has attacked as a “ghamandia (arrogant) alliance” in the past. This, as a Congress leader explained to Manoj CG, is meant to “reinforce the Congress-BJP binary, the UPA-NDA binary”. It is something that has worked to the PM’s advantage in the last two parliamentary elections. Another Congress leader told Manoj that since the Congress and the BJP would be in a “direct fight in almost 200 constituencies in the Hindi heartland and a state such as Gujarat”, the PM “has to demolish the Congress and its leadership, especially Rahul”.

As Rahul continues with his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra — it will move from Jharkhand to Odisha’s Biramitrapur in Sundargarh district on Tuesday evening — he and the Congress face a crucial challenge. They will not only have to negate the PM’s attempts to make the election just about them, thus avoiding the “binary trap”, but they will also have to establish that the election is bigger than just Modi and Rahul or Congress and BJP. So far, the Congress has stuck to the message, taking on the PM on his governance record and livelihood issues.

But with the PM setting the tone for the Lok Sabha polls — senior leaders such as J P Nadda and Amit Shah chaired some key state meetings last week, and the BJP’s National Council may meet in the middle of this month — the Congress and its allies have to expedite seat-sharing talks and poll preparations on the ground.

The Uttarakhand government on Tuesday is likely to table a Bill on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), reports PTI, a day after a special Assembly session began to discuss and debate the UCC draft.

The Bill, if passed, will serve as a template for other states such as Assam and Gujarat and will be a shot in the arm for the BJP, marking a massive advance in its attempt to realise its third major ideological goal after the Ayodhya Ram Mandir and the abolition of Article 370.

The district court in Varanasi on Tuesday will hear a fresh petition seeking a directive to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to survey other closed cellars in the Gyanvapi mosque complex, which is adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. The court on January 31 permitted a priest to perform puja in the southern cellar of the mosque complex. The other cellars, the petitioner has argued, were not accessed during the ASI survey, whose report was presented to the parties involved on January 24.

Meanwhile, the Allahabad High Court will continue its hearing into a petition that the Anjuman Intezamia Masajid Committee, which manages the mosque, filed on February 2 against the district court’s order allowing puja.

In context: During the last hearing, the High Court told the mosque committee to amend its application after lawyers representing the plaintiff raised a “preliminary objection” on the “maintainability of appeal on the ground that the basic order dated 17.01.2024 has not been challenged”. In his January 17 order, District Judge A K Vishvesha appointed the Varanasi District Magistrate as the receiver of the southern cellar.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Goa on Tuesday to inaugurate India Energy Week 2024 and an ONGC Sea Survival Centre.

In the afternoon, the PM will participate in the Viksit Bharat, Viksit Goa 2047 programme in Margao. At the event, he will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of projects worth more than Rs 1,330 crore. Modi will also distribute appointment orders to 1,930 new government recruits across various departments under the Rozgar Mela and hand over sanction letters to beneficiaries of various welfare schemes.