The BJP in Uttar Pradesh has identified 42 parliamentary seats on which Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will campaign.
“These are winnable seats and we want Mr Modi to campaign on these seats so that victory is ensured. We will not waste his time by taking him to seats where the party is not comfortably placed. The seats will be finalised as soon as the candidates are finalised,” said a senior party functionary.
Though the leader declined to name the seats where Mr Modi will be campaigning, sources said that some of the seats included Maharajganj, Deoria, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Varanasi, Ballia, Dumariaganj, Bahraich and Sultanpur in eastern UP, Lakhimpur, Dhaurhara, Lucknow, Unnao, Kanpur in central UP and Ghaziabad, Meerut, Agra, in western UP.
Party sources said that Mr Modi would begin his nationwide campaign with states where Assembly polls are due later in 2013. “It is only after he is done with these states which include Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi, that he will start touring other states,” the party functionary said.
Meanwhile, in an effort to win over OBCs, in general, and Kurmis, in particular, the BJP has decided to collect iron offerings from all villages in UP for the proposed iron statue of Sardar Patel, known as the Iron man of Indian politics.
It may be recalled that Mr Modi had announced a few days ago that he proposed to install a larger-than-life iron statute of Sardar Patel in Gujarat and every village would contribute iron for it. The same scheme will be extended to Uttar Pradesh as well.