Nadda to flag off BJP's 'Jan Ashirwad Yatra' in MP's Chitrakoot on Sunday

PM Modi is expected to address a meeting of BJP workers to mark the culmination of these five mass-contact programmes on September 25 in Bhopal, party leaders said

BJP national president JP Nadda will on Sunday flag off his party's Jan Ashirward Yatra' in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh to seek the blessing of the people and reach out to them, from the holy city of Chitrakoot in Satna district.

Assembly elections in the BJP-governed MP are due by the year-end.

Naddaji is expected to reach Chitrakoot around 10 am. He will participate in a function for the launch of the yatra around 11 am and flag it off at noon, Satna BJP district president Satish Sharma told PTI over the phone from Chitrakoot.

Four such yatras will be taken out from other places in the next week, another party functionary said. During the course of the yatras, the BJP will reach out to the people through large public meetings and highlight the welfare schemes of the Centre and state and their achievements.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address a meeting of BJP workers to mark the culmination of these five mass-contact programmes on September 25 in Bhopal, party leaders said.

September 25 is the birth anniversary of the late Deendayal Upadhyaya, a top leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh that later became the BJP.

The yatra from Chitrakoot will pass through the Vindhya region of Madhya Pradesh. In the 2018 assembly polls, the BJP had won 24 of the 30 seats in this region.

BJP leaders said that these five yatras will cover more than 10,500 km by crisscrossing 210 of MP's 230 assembly constituencies before reaching Bhopal.

Though they will reach the state capital on September 21, the formal culmination of the yatras will take place on September 25 with a Karyakarta Mahakumbh', they said.

While Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was at the forefront of such programmes ahead of the last assembly elections, the BJP central leadership has decided to involve Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari for the yatras this time.

In the November 2018 MP assembly polls, the Congress won 114 of 230 seats while the BJP finished second with 109 seats.

The Congress formed a coalition government with the support of independents, BSP, and SP under Kamal Nath. However, it collapsed after 15 months when a string of Congress MLAs led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, now a Union minister, joined the BJP, paving the way for Chouhan's return as CM.