CHANDIGARH — Amid the blistering heatwave in the region, as the temperatures three-four notches above the season's average, the BJP's top brass will continue its campaign for the Lok Sabha polls on Thursday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing two rallies -- one each in Haryana and Punjab.
Prime Minister Modi will address the day's first public meeting in Haryana's Bhiwani-Mahendragarh, which goes to the polls along with other state's nine seats in the sixth phase on May 25. The campaigning in Haryana will end on Thursday evening.
Later, he will address an election rally at Patiala in Punjab where the polls will be held on all 13 seats on June 1, along with the lone seat of Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.
Earlier on Wednesday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: "If the Opposition INDIA bloc comes to power in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it will dispose of the Agnipath scheme into the dustbin."
At a public meeting in Haryana's Mahendragarh, Rahul Gandhi added, "PM Narendra Modi has made the jawans of India like labourers...The Army doesn't want the Agnipath scheme. It's a scheme made by the PMO. Once Congress comes to power, we will discard the scheme entirely."
The Bhiwani-Mahendragarh constituency, where the caste and region of the candidates are the crucial factors, is set to witness a neck-and-neck contest between BJP's sitting MP Dharambir Singh, who banks on the Modi factor, and Congress legislator from Mahendragarh, Rao Dan Singh, who belongs to the Ahir community.
Congress Tosham legislator Kiran Choudhry is disgruntled after the party denied a ticket to her daughter and former Bhiwani-Mahendergarh MP Shruti Choudhry, who faced two consecutive defeats in 2014 and 2019 from BJP's Dharambir Singh.
Tosham is one of the nine Assembly constituencies that falls under the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh Lok Sabha seat.
The BJP holds five -- Loharu, Bhiwani, Ateli, Narnaul, and Nangal Chaudhry -- while two, Tosham and Mahendragarh, are held by the Congress.
The Jannayak Janata Party (JJP), which recently parted ways with the BJP, represents the Badhra Assembly seat, while Dadri is represented by Independent legislator Sombir Sangwan, who is now backing the Congress.
Thursday's rally is Prime Minister Modi's second rally in the BJP-ruled Haryana.
At a public meeting in Ambala on May 18, Prime Minister Modi intensified his attack on the Congress and said it was his "dhakad" (strong) government that brought down the wall of Article 370 and as a result, Kashmir is now moving ahead on the path of development.
In Punjab, Prime Minister Modi on Thursday will address first of his three scheduled rallies, two a day later, for four-time MP and former Minister of State for External Affairs, Preneet Kaur, who is contesting for the first time on a BJP ticket from this seat. She's caught in a multi-cornered contest.
Preneet Kaur was at the receiving end of political barbs when her husband and former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who is known for his royal ways -- being from the erstwhile royal family of Patiala -- chose to stay away from the political scene, is campaigning, with a focus largely on urban areas that fall in the nine Assembly constituencies of the AAP-ruled state.
In rural areas, like all the other 12 nominees of the BJP, Preneet Kaur is facing the wrath of farmers over their unmet demands by the government at the Centre.
Sitting MP Preneet Kaur has been pitted against Congress candidate and noted cardiologist Dharamvira Gandhi.
Incidentally, Dharamvira Gandhi defeated Preneet Kaur in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when he was contesting on an AAP ticket.
While this time the AAP has fielded Health Minister, Balbir Singh, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has reposed faith in two-time legislator and realtor N.K. Sharma, the first Hindu face of the party from the Sikh-dominated seat.
Singh and Sharma are political greenhorns where parliamentary polls are concerned.
On May 24, Prime Minister Modi will address rallies at Gurdaspur and Jalandhar for candidates Dinesh Babbu and Sushil Rinku, respectively.
The stakes are high for the BJP this time in Punjab as it is in the parliamentary fray alone for the first time. The Akali Dal snapped nearly three-decade-long ties and pulled out of the National Democratic Alliance in September 2020 over the contentious, now-repealed farm laws. On earlier occasions, the BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had been contesting as part of the seat-sharing pact since 1996.
Farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal has said farmers will show black flags to PM Modi when he visits Punjab for campaigning. A decision in this regard was taken at a rally organised by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM).
During the 2019 elections, the Congress won eight out of 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. The BJP and SAD won two seats each, while the AAP could only manage to secure one seat.
In Haryana, the BJP had won all 10 seats in 2019.