Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to sound the BJP's poll bugle in Punjab on January 5 and share the stage with the party's new ally and former chief minister of the state Amarinder Singh, sources said on Tuesday. The prime minister is scheduled to inaugurate a satellite centre of the Chandigarh-based Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Punjab's Ferozepur and is likely to address a rally after the event, the sources in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said.
The rally will be the first to be addressed by the prime minister in Punjab after the repeal of three contentious farm laws of the Centre. Farmers staged protests against the laws at the borders of Delhi for almost a year and called off the agitation on January 11 after the legislations were repealed in the winter session of Parliament.
Modi's rally will kick off the campaign of the BJP and its new allies in Punjab for the 2022 state Assembly polls, the sources said. Singh, whose Punjab Lok Congress has stitched up an alliance with the saffron party for the Punjab polls, may also attend the rally, they added.
If Singh attends the rally, this will be the first time that he and Modi will share the stage after the former Punjab chief minister quit the Congress. Besides Modi, Union minister and the BJP's poll in-charge for Punjab Gajendra Shekhawat, his cabinet colleagues Hardeep Puri and Meenakshi Lekhi are also expected to take part in the rally.
Ahead of the Punjab polls, former India cricketer Dinesh Mongia and sitting Congress MLA Fateh Singh Bajwa joined the BJP on Tuesday in the presence of Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Bajwa, MLA from Qadian, is the brother of senior Congress leader Pratap Singh Bajwa. Besides Bajwa, Balwinder Singh Laddi, sitting MLA of Congress from Punjab, also joined the BJP on Tuesday. These joinings came a day after former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh and former Union minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa met the BJP top brass after which an announcement for a formal alliance was made between the BJP and the parties of these two leaders.
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