Varanasi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit his parliamentary constituency Varanasi on Thursday during which he will interact with nearly 20,000 booth-level party workers at the Diesel Locmotive Works (DLW).
The PM's message to the booth-level workers of the BJP, drawn from all five Assembly segments falling under the Lok Sabha constituency, will set the tone for the party foot soldiers faced with a daunting task of holding their own in a state where politics has been dominated by two rival regional players - the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
This will be his ninth tour of Varanasi since he became the Prime Minister in May, 2014.
Significantly, today's visit will also be his fifth since January this year.
The increased frequency of his trips here is seen as one of the many efforts being made by the BJP to improve its tally in the 403-strong UP Assembly where it has less than 50 MLAs.
PM Modi's visit, which could be the last to the temple town before the poll schedule is announced and the Model Code of Conduct comes into force, also includes flagging off of quite a few projects.
These include laying of foundation stones for a cancer centre and a super-speciality hospital at the Benares Hindu University where PM Modi will also spend some time at the "Rashtriya Sanskriti Mahotsav" (national cultural festival), a week-long event organized by the Union Ministry for Culture where artistes from across the country, some of them of international repute, have been performing.
From BHU premises, PM Modi will leave for a brief tour of Kabir Nagar locality, named after the 17th century mystic and poet, and inspect underground cabling and heritage lighting work, which is being carried out as part of the IPDS (Integrated Power Development Scheme) and HRIDAY (Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana) schemes, as per PTI.
Thereafter the Prime Minister will reach DLW, where his political engagements will be preceded by laying of foundation stone for a 150-bed ESIC (Employee's State Insurance Corporation) super speciality hospital and inauguration of a trade facilitation centre and a crafts museum besides launching of a number of schemes and projects under the Textiles Ministry.
(With PTI inputs)
