Modi to visit TN on March 15; third visit within two weeks
As per the tentative schedule, the PM is expected to visit Salem on March 15, Kanniyakumari on March 16 and Coimbatore on March 18. These districts in the west and south of Tamil Nadu are where the party has pockets of influence.
PM Narendra Modi (File photo)
CHENNAI: Continuing his relentless efforts to woo the people – read voters – in Tamil Nadu ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come to Tamil Nadu on March 15 to attend BJP conference at Salem.
This is his third visit in just one month, a clear sign of the election season setting in.
As per the tentative schedule, the PM is expected to visit Salem on March 15, Kanniyakumari on March 16 and Coimbatore on March 18. These districts in the west and south of Tamil Nadu are where the party has pockets of influence.
The conference being held in Salem has also made political observers sit up and take notice, as it is the fortress of AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami, the saffron party's friend-turned-foe. Many are reading this as the clearest indication that the BJP has given up any remaining hopes of contesting the polls along with its former ally.
According to a Maalaimalar report, the State unit of the party is planning to bring one lakh functionaries, mainly from Salem, Namakkal and Karur, to the conference. The preparatory works at the venue in Gajjalnayakkanpatti are being supervised by a team headed by KP Ramalingam, a former Rajya Sabha MP of the DMK who switched sides.
In the recent past, Modi was at Tirupur on February 27 (again a part of the Kongu belt), then at Thoothukudi the next day to dedicate projects worth more than Rs 17,000 crore. A week later, he was in the State ostensibly to witness the commencement of ‘core loading’ of the country’s indigenous Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam.
Later that evening, he addressed the party conference held in Nandanam in Chennai. In the rhetoric-filled speech, Modi pointed out the recent drug hauls and vowed to protect Tamil Nadu from narcotics. The attack is likely to sharpen in his upcoming visit, coming as it does on the back of recent developments, including the arrest of a former DMK man who is alleged to be the kingpin of a transnational trafficking ring.