Modi to visit Rae Bareli on Sunday

Lucknow: Notwithstanding the setbacks BJP suffered in assembly polls in three major Hindi heartland states this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Rae Bareli, the traditional seat of the Gandhi family, on Sunday. This will be the first visit by the prime minister to the constituency represented by United Progressive Alliance chairperson and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and before her by other members of her family. Modi’s visit is being seen as a strategy of the BJP to pin the Congress leadership in their respective constituencies in the 2019 general election. His visit was planned before the counting of votes polled in the five states was taken up on December 11, following which the Congress party threw out BJP governments in three states — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani, who contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from the neighbouring Amethi against Congress president Rahul Gandhi, often visits Rae Bareli apparently as part of a bid by the BJP to dent the Gandhi family bastion in 2019. (PTI)