File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
With the party under attack from Congress over heckling of opposition chief ministers at events attended by the Prime Minister, BJP's Karnataka unit today instructed its members not to boo anyone sharing public platform with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his two-day visit to the state starting tomorrow.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has decided to take part in an event near Tumkur on September 24 when PM Modi will be present. Senior BJP leader R Ashoka said "We have given instructions to our party workers not to boo anyone sharing platform with Narendra Modi. We have told party workers to give respect to the Chief Minister," he told reporters in Bangalore ahead of PM Modi's visit to the city.
In the recent past, three Chief Ministers were booed after they had shared a stage with PM Modi. Chief Ministers of Haryana (Bhupinder Singh Hooda), Jharkhand (Hemant Soren) and Maharashtra (Prithviraj Chavan) were jeered by BJP supporters during official events attended by PM Modi.
In consequence, some Congress Chief Ministers had even announced they would boycott Modi's programmes in future while their party alleged that an "orchestrated" and "well-planned conspiracy by BJP and RSS was behind the protests and said such occurrences "hurt" the spirit of federalism.
The BJP leaders have also instructed their workers and supporters not to carry any BJP banners and flags at the venues, Mr Ashoka said.
PM Modi will arrive at the HAL airport tomorrow evening soon after which he will address BJP workers. He would then spend the night at Raj Bhavan.
The next morning, he will visit ISRO's facility at Peenya in Bangalore at 6.45 am during the Mars Orbiter Insertion manoeuvre. Later, he is scheduled to visit Tumkur to inaugurate the food park.