Blame it on Wednesday’s bad weather in the national capital area, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari could not attend three public rallies in Uttarakhand, where the party is in power. However, a tech-savvy Mr Gadkari still managed to address these rallies in Ranipur, Vikas Nagar and Rishikesh through his cellphone.
The copter, which was to take Mr Gadkari to Uttarakhand, failed to take off due to inclement weather in the morning from Greater Noida. Mr Gadkari then addressed the rally in Ranipur through his cellphone and managed to list his party’s achievements along with attacking the Opposition Congress. Similarly, he addressed another rally, while on his way to the airport from Greater Noida. But as the chartered plane could not take off due to bad weather condition at the Delhi airport he addressed the third rally as well through his cellphone while on his way to his official residence on Teen Murti Lane. Mr Gadkari is now expected to address a series of rallies in the hill state on January 22 and 23. Other senior leaders, who are also expected to address rallies in the state next week, are BJP parliamentary party chairman L.K. Advani, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and her counterpart in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley. Former party chief and overall incharge of UP and Uttarakhand polls, Rajnath Singh and senior leader M.M. Joshi and Ravi Shankar Prasad are also scheduled to address rallies in the hill state.
However, the party is yet to finalise the overall campaign strategy for Uttar Pradesh polls as some of its senior leaders, it was learnt, are reluctant to campaign in constituencies where the party has fielded candidates facing criminal charges. It could be mentioned that after party faced criticism for inducting scam tainted former UP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha, senior leaders including Mr Advani, Ms Swaraj and Dr Joshi had expressed reluctance to campaign for tainted candidates.