Pan-India summer roadshow

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) flagged off a series of events across the country starting April 6, its foundation day. The events will continue till April 14, the birth anniversary of the architect of the Constitution, B R Ambedkar. Senior ministers have been asked to fan out across India to address public meetings and press conferences. The effort is to propagate the Narendra Modi government’s “pro-poor” policies. The focus will be on three states — Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Karnataka — which are going to the polls in the next 18 months, as also on the Lok Sabha seats the BJP lost in 2014. The states where the BJP hopes to do better are Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and the north-eastern states. With summer temperatures already crossing 40 degree Celsius in some states, several BJP leaders were hoping that they might be asked to visit Himachal Pradesh or the north-eastern states. However, party President Amit Shah is headed to Hyderabad, while other senior leaders have been asked to visit Karnataka, Odisha and West Bengal first.