New Delhi: Chief ministers belonging to the Congress party may skip events involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi as retaliation for the booing of Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday.
Despite its humiliating defeat in the May general elections, the Congress party continues to be in power in 12 states — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Maharashtra.
According to indications, Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan may skip Modi’s official function at Nagpur on Thursday.
According to protocol, the concerned chief minister of the state is expected to receive the prime minister and be with him on his official visits. Haryana chief minister Hooda was there to receive Modi when he visited Kaithal town on Tuesday to lay foundation stone for a new road liking Haryana and Rajasthan.
Hooda was hooted by Modi fans as soon as he started to speak. Later Modi rubbed the salt on his leaking wound by criticising Hooda without naming him for rampant corruption and lack of development in his speech.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hooda’s Congress party are engaged in a tough fight in the upcoming Haryana legislative assembly elections scheduled for October.
Hooda announced after the function that in future he would not participate in events involving Prime Minister Modi and criticised the organisers for converting an official function into a political rally.
The Prime Minister’s Office is drawing up Modi’s visits to states with an eye on upcoming state assembly polls in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir. Modi has already visited Jammu and Kashmir twice and Haryana once using official functions to promote cause of the BJP, he is slated to visit Maharashtra on Thursday and visit Jharkhand later this month.
BJP is in opposition in all these four poll-bound states and intends to use Modi to charm the voters and come to power in its bid to expand the party’s base.
BJP under Modi surprised everyone by coming to power on its own strength for the first time in the May general elections and becoming the first party in three decades to win majority. BJP intends to cash in on Modi’s charm hoping the wave he had created in the last general elections still continues.
Despite being a marginal player in Haryana, BJP rode on Modi wave to win seven out of eight parliamentary seats it contested in Haryana and is since claiming that it will form government on its own in Haryana.
BJP is expecting to come to power along with its regional ally Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, return to power in Jharkhand and create history by becoming the ruling party in India’s only Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir.
