Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be travelling to western Uttar Pradesh for the first time since the announcement of assembly polls in the state. He will hold a door-to-door campaign, meet party workers and interact with intellectuals during his visit to Shamli and Meerut districts of this region which is crucial for BJP's prospects in the polls.
The Home Minister will embark on a door-to-door campaign in Kairana on Saturday afternoon.
The constituency had seen an exodus of Hindu families in 2016 and their return later after huge efforts. The BJP has fielded Mriganka Singh, eldest daughter of late Hukum Singh who had won the seat several times.
The Home Minister will hold a closed-door meeting in Shamli with party leaders from Shamli and Baghpat.
He will hold a meeting with intellectuals in Meerut on Saturday evening to conclude his engagements for the day.
The polls in western Uttar Pradesh are crucial for BJP as it involves about 108 seats and the party had done well in the previous assembly election. The party had won 83 seats in the region in 2017 and the party leadership is confident of repeating the performance.
The BJP swept Uttar Pradesh in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections winning 78 out of 80 seats. It won over 300 seats in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and 62 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when Amit Shah was the party chief.
Amit Shah is known to have good understanding of caste dynamics in the state and knows key workers personally across constituencies in the crucial state. State BJP leaders are hoping that his campaigning and organisation skills will again help the party register an impressive victory.
Elections to 403 member Uttar Pradesh assembly will be held in seven phases. The first phase of polls will be held in parts of Western Uttar Pradesh on February 10.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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