Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit poll-bound Arunachal Pradesh today where he will inaugurate the newly constructed Dorjee Khandu State Convention Centre in Itanagar. With a well-equipped auditorium, conference halls and an exhibition hall, the centre is expected to serve as a location for meetings, functions etc.
The prime minister is also scheduled to inaugurate the state Civil Secretariat complex in the state capital. Besides this, PM Modi will also launch DD Arun Prabha, a new 24×7 satellite television channel of Doordarshan for the north-eastern region.
PM Modi will also lay the foundation stone of the Academic Block of the Tomo Riba Institute of Health and Medical Science in the state capital.
The prime minister will then fly to Tripura on his second visit in two weeks to address two public meetings, one in Agartala and the other in Shantirbazar. This will be Modi's second visit to the hilly state in a week.
Thursday is the second last of campaigning before the state goes to polls on February 18.
PM Modi was in the poll-bound state last week and had addressed rallies in Sonamura and Kailashahar attended by around 40,000 BJP supporters.
During the rallies, PM Modi had slammed the Left government’s misrule of 25 years in Tripura as the main reason for the backwardness.
"The BJP government at the Centre is working with all sincerity for all round progress of northeast India. But Tripura remained backward, and people of the state remained underdeveloped due to misrule of Left parties for the past 25 years," he said.
The prime minister’s Thursday visit assumes significance in the face of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s scheduled trip to the state a day later, on Friday. The Gandhi scion will also address an election rally in Kailashahar and stage a road show in Agartala.
BJP president Amit Shah has held multiple public meetings and road shows while top leaders like Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari besides its Hindutva face -- Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath -- have been reaching out to the 25 lakh voters in its 60 assembly seats.
The national spotlight the tiny state is getting is something new for its curious and politically aware voters who are divided on whether the saffron surge will be enough to surmount the red fortress.
For a party which got less than two per cent votes in the last assembly polls, the task at hand could not be more arduous.
The Left had received over 50 per cent of votes and its mascot and Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has a standing that often rises above the common refrain about lack of employment opportunities, development, and basic issues of drinking water and electricity.
If the Left is promising continuity with its focus on rural development and the poor, the BJP has let it be known that with the party in the power at the centre, it can shower the state with goodies and funds which the CPI(M) cannot.
Elections for the 60-member Tripura Assembly would be held on February 18 and results would be out on March 3. The tenure of the current Tripura Assembly ends on March 14.
