Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit of his parliamentary constituency has been postponed due to incessant rains that hit the city since the morning on Sunday. Despite all best arrangements, the local administration and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders had no option but to call off the visit as the rains continued almost uninterrupted till the evening.
Hectic efforts were made till noon hours to drain out the water at DlW’s Central Ground (Cinema Hall Complex) where Modi was scheduled to launch various ambitious projects apart from addressing a public meeting but of no avail.
“We have no other option but to cancel the programme as the region might receive more amount of rain as per the forecast of Meteorological department,” said Union Minister of State for Power and Coal (Independent Charge) Piyush Goyal, who is here to look after all the arrangements.
According to him, Modi was scheduled here to launch ambitious project of Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS). “The revised visit schedule would be chalked out soon after discussion with the Met department,” he said.
State BJP chief laxmikant Bajpai said that all the arrangements were complete but due to rains there were no other option. However, he expressed his confidence that Modi will visit here soon. Since morning, the top BJP leaders, including State chief, regional president and MlC laxman Acharya and others were camping in DlW to see the possibilities of the PM’s visit.
The PM was scheduled to arrive at lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Babatpur by special plane from Ranchi after his Jharkhand programme and from Babatpur he was scheduled to reach DlW by helicopter. Though majority of planes arrived and departed, the weather condition was not risky for helicopter.
Besides, the scheduled road route from DlW-BHU for inaugurating Trauma Centre, the country’s biggest one, was waterlogged at many places, including the Trauma Centre campus.