The BJP announced its official campaign with a series of rallies starting on March 26 from Jammu, for which personal invitation letters will be sent to voters by its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi.
Modi and party President Rajnath Singh are clearly the BJP’s star campaigners, expected to address 185 and 155 rallies, respectively. Although other leaders — LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje — were mentioned, it was not specified how many rallies each of these leaders will address.
Unlike previous campaigns, when the schedule of each of the central leaders was announced beforehand, BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who announced the inauguration of the party’s campaign, was not able to tell where leaders such as Swaraj and Advani will campaign and for how many days.
“All these leaders will campaign. I am simply not able to tell you when and where.
“It is a prolonged election which will go on for nine phases. Schedules will be worked out individually,” said Naqvi.
Simultaneously, Naqvi parried questions about a confusing tweet by Rajnath. He had posted a tweet asserting, “ Abki baar bhajapa sarkar (This time, it will be a BJP government.)”
The tweet was accompanied with a picture of Rajnath waving to the crowds.
About half an hour later, the tweet was replaced with, “ Abki baar, Modi sarkar (This time, it will be a government led by Modi.)”
The tweet was believed to have been the BJP President’s response to criticism that the BJP’s campaign was getting too focused on Modi. “There is no contradiction between a BJP government and a Modi government. If Modiji is PM, it is naturally a BJP Government,” said Naqvi.