200+ events in 76 days: PM Modi takes meditation break in Kanyakumari after marathon poll campaign

PM Narendra Modi addressed his maximum election events in Uttar Pradesh (31).

After wrapping up his Lok Sabha campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi  headed to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanniyakumari on Thursday for a two-day meditation trip. The PM had kick-started his marathon campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha election from Kanniyakumari on March 16 this year.

The campaigning for the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections will come to an end on Thursday evening. Voting in this final phase will take place on June 1. The counting of votes is scheduled for June 4.

According to reports, Modi notched up a total of 206 public outreach programmes, including rallies and roadshows, since the EC announced the poll schedule on March 16.

The PM, who campaigned for 76  days, completed these events at a rate of over three events per day.  As per the report, on three days he attended five events on a single day, while on 22 days he did four events daily, according to News18.

The report by News18 stated that PM Modi attended 96 campaigns in May across India.

Four states in focus

Four states were in focus of PM Modi’s campaign and contributed to over half of all his public events. The PM addressed his maximum election events in Uttar Pradesh (31), as the state sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. The NDA had won 64 seats in UP in 2019 and the BJP is aiming to up its tally in the state.

In Bihar, the PM did 20 election events, followed by Maharashtra with 19 and West Bengal with 18. According to News18, he almost doubled his election rallies in Maharashtra from 2019. The state has BJP making new alliances with Eknath Shinde’s Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar’s NCP. Meanwhile, Bihar saw Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) back in NDA’s fold.

In West Bengal, where the party wants to push its tally, the PM held 18 poll events including a big road show in Kolkata. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP bagged 18 seats in the state. PM Modi’s Road show in Mumbai and Patna also pulled huge crowds.

Eyes on heartland

In Odisha, where the BJP decided to go solo and locked horns with Chief Minister Naveen Pathak’s BJD, the PM held 10 rallies. The PM held a big road show in Puri too. While Madhya Pradesh witnessed 10 events, Jharkhand saw 7 poll events.  Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh witnessed five and four election events by the Prime Minister, respectively.

South push

As part of the BJP’s “south push”, PM Modi held 35 election events in the five southern states, including 11 events each in Karnataka and Telangana, and seven in Tamil Nadu.

The PM’s home state of Gujarat saw him conduct five campaign events . Punjab got four rallies by the Prime Minister, including his last rally of this election season in Hoshiarpur on May 30. Haryana saw three rallies, while Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand saw two rallies each. North-Eastern states also saw two rallies by the Prime Minister while the UT of Jammu and Kashmir saw one rally.

The PM surpassed his nearly 145 public engagements during the 2019 polls by a big margin.