Modi to start Maharashtra poll campaign from Mumbai

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will kick off his Maharashtra assembly election campaign with a weekender rally in Mumbai, party sources said Thursday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party rally will be addressed by Modi Saturday evening 7 p.m. at the Mahalaxmi Race Course in south Mumbai.

Top state and central BJP leaders are expected to be present at the much-awaited rally which the party hopes could turn the tables on the other four major contending parties - the Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena - for the Oct 15 elections.

This is the same venue where Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray launched his party's poll campaign two days ago and blasted the state BJP for snapping the two parties' 25-year-old alliance.

A BJP official said that besides Mumbai, Modi is likely to campaign in other parts of Maharashtra including Kolhapur, Satara and Sangli and strongholds of the Congress and the NCP, but the programme has not been finalised yet.

The build up to Modi's rally has seen a series of public meetings by state BJP leaders and also union minister Nitin Gadkari in the state in the past few days.

The BJP hopes to independently come to power for the first time since it ruled the state in coalition with the Shiv Sena between 1995-1999.