Union Home Minister Amit Shah will flag off the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Jan Ashirwad Yatra' on September 3 from Chitrakoot in Satna in Madhya Pradesh, where polls will be held at the end of the year. Making the announcement in a press conference, Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and state unit chief VD Sharma also said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to address a workers' meeting to mark the culmination of the yatra in Bhopal on September 25, the birth anniversary of stalwart Deendayal Upadhyaya.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the longest serving chief minister of the state, will take part for a few hours on each day of the yatra, said Tomar, who is also the party's MP election management committee convenor. The Jan Ashirwad Yatra will be taken out from different parts of the state, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has been invited to flag off four legs of the initiative, Sharma informed.
"Five committees have been formed for five yatras. Its state convenor is MP minister Bhupendra Singh. These yatras will cover more than 10,500 kilometres in 210 of the state's 230 Assembly seats and public meetings will take place en route," Sharma said.
"Though the yatra will reach Bhopal on September 21, the formal culmination will be on September 25 to coincide with Karyakarta Mahakumbh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been invited to address the workers at the Karyakarta Mahakumbh," he said.
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Asked about Chouhan announcing several sops for women on Sunday, the move coming sometime after the Congress made public a list of poll promises, Tomar said his party stood for welfare of the poor, Dalits and women and wanted to empower them.
While the Congress has promised Rs 1,500 monthly aid to women, cooking gas cylinder for Rs 500, free power for up to 100 units, Chouhan has said women will get Rs 1,250 as financial aid under Ladli Behna Yojana from October, and cooking gas cylinder for Rs 450 in August.
Asked about the BJP's poll slogans talking about 150 seats this time instead of the more ambitious 'abki baar 200 paar' in the run up to the 2018 state polls, Tomar said he was confident his party would win with a comfortable majority.
Tomar did not give a direct answer to a media question about Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia not being part of any poll panels in MP so far, but said the performance of the BJP would be remarkable in the Gwalior-Chambal region, where the latter holds sway. Incidentally, a rebellion by MLAs close to Scindia brought down the Congress' Kamal Nath government in March 2020 and paved the way for the return of the BJP under Chouhan.
