lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Mar 06, 2019 07:14 IST

Kept in a glass casket for over five years now, a wooden chair, considered auspicious for BJP’s poll prospects, is being spruced up once again for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this time for his March 8 rally here.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Kanpur believe that the lucky chair had catapulted the party to power at the Centre in 2014 and in UP in 2017. Modi used this chair in October 2013 and December 2016, ahead of 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 UP assembly elections.

Following the Lok Sabha victory in 2014, BJP leaders had purchased the chair from the dealer who had provided it for the rally then.

Kept at the BJP office, a king-size sticker has also been put atop the casket explaining the chair’s worth. According to party leaders, the chair is now being polished again ahead of PM Modi’s visit.

“The chair has been polished again for the PM’s visit. This will be the third time that Modi ji will be using this chair which has been kept at the BJP office since 2013. We will request him to sit on this lucky chair again,” party’s district unit president Surendra Maithani said.

Maithani recalled that Modi’s rally in 2013 drew a crowd of about 7 lakh people.

He said the March 8 rally was being organised for Kanpur and Akbarpur parliamentary seats. “Earlier, the party had proposed to hold the rally for 10 Lok Sabha seats of Kanpur and Bundelkhand region,” Maithani added.

A BJP leader, who did not wish to be named, said: “The results of 2014 and 2017 elections are cases in point. If this is working why not continue it? Kanpur city is also believed to be auspicious for launching election campaign. The rally is being seen as the launch of BJP’s poll campaign in UP.”

The BJP workers had on Monday performed ‘bhoomi pujan’ at the Nirala Nagar rally ground to make it free of evil affects.

Regional president of BJP’s Minority Morcha Ajit Singh Chabra said, “For the first time, a separate gallery for Sikhs will be arranged at the rally ground where about 1,000 Sikhs will be seated.”

Local BJP leaders said the PM would not perform the stone- laying ceremony of Kanpur metro rail as it had already been done during the Samajwadi Party regime in 2016. He will, however, lay the foundation stone of Agra metro and flag off the extension project of Lucknow metro.