Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to eastern Uttar Pradesh’s Sant Kabir Nagar district today on a visit laden with symbolism that is also seen to signal the launch of the BJP’s campaign for next year’s general elections in Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2014 elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party made Varanasi the epicentre of the BJP’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh and he won the Lok Sabha seat from there.
This time, for 2019, PM Modi has chosen Maghar – about 200 km from Varanasi – that has been considered, by the superstitious, as a ‘gateway to hell’. That anyone who died in Maghar would go straight to hell. It is a superstition that the 15th-century poet Kabir – known for his message of tolerance – had sought to dispel when he travelled to Maghar to breathe his last.
A statement by the PMO says PM Modi will offer floral tributes at Sant Kabir Samadhi on the occasion of the 500th death anniversary of the great saint and poet and pay his respects at his mausoleum. He will also visit the Sant Kabir Cave and lay the foundation stone of a Sant Kabir Academy that Yogi Adityanath’s government hurriedly cleared at its meeting yesterday.
During his monthly radio address “Mann Ki Baat” on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recalled the contribution of the 15th-century poet-saint in dispelling superstition.
It is a message that PM Modi is expected to carry forward, particularly given how the opposition parties have been trying to turn attacks on Dalits, minorities and the weaker sections, into a key campaign plank for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
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