Modi to Address Public Meetings on Oct. 1, 3; Shah, Nadda to Follow Trail

HYDERABAD: In a clear indication that it is feeling the election heat in the state, the BJP has said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address not one but two public meetings within three days in the first week of October.

State BJP president G. Kishan Reddy said Modi would address a public meeting in Mahbubnagar district on October 1 and follow it up with a second meeting in Nizamabad on October 3. The Prime Minister will also be taking part in official programmes during his visit.

The party is making plans for a series of meetings to be addressed by Union home minister Amit Shah and party president J.P. Nadda in the coming weeks.

The meetings are part of the BJP’s plan to organise at least one public meeting in each of the 10 erstwhile unified districts. Among Modi, Shah and Nadda, the party is planning for at least nine such meetings.

With the focus shifting to direct campaigning that will be started by Modi at his Mahbubnagar meeting on October 1, the party is learnt to have dropped its plans for three bus yatras and instead, focus on ground-level work by its leaders and workers.

Meanwhile, Kishan Reddy on Monday appointed party leader Kasem Venkateswarulu as state general secretary. As part of a series of appointments to various party cells, he appointed former MLC N. Ramchander Rao as an advisor to the BJP legal cell.

He said that the BJP welcomes the decision taken by Governor Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan on the Governor’s quota MLC nominations. “The quota is for providing representation to intellectuals with expertise in arts, culture, social service and not for politicians,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Kishan Reddy inaugurated a new ambulance service donated by the Atal Behari Vajpayee Foundation to the Nampally Government Area Hospital. “The new ambulance will add to the services provided to the people in the area,” he said.