The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) on Wednesday called off Narendra Modi’s Dumka rally which was scheduled for March 24 leaving the party leaders in quandary over grounds for calling off the much hyped show of the party’s PM candidate.
“The rally has been postponed after notification of polls and it may not be possible to hold rally in that region,” said State BJP president Ravindra Kumar Rai. However, organisers of the rally are confident that it will be organised at Dumka and the party high command will announce fresh date keeping in view the lok Sabha elections. The district unit of the BJP was almost ready with the preparations the upcoming lok Sabha election probably made the BJP to redraw its strategy and leverage the Narendra Modi factor in the Santhal region which was almost ready to stage the public rally. “The elections have been announced it will be conducted in several phases across Jharkhand so that could be the reason for postponing the rally,” maintained Satyanand Jha ‘Batul’.
The Model Code of conduct also appears to be the reason behind the rally which was planned before General Election-2014 was announced. Also, in the evolving circumstances the party seems to be contemplating the opportune moment to use the Modi wave for maximum benefit in the Santhal region comprising three parliamentary constituencies- Rajmahal, Dumka and Godda.
Notably, Dumka, where the rally was scheduled will witness clash of two heavyweights in Jharkhand’s politics — JVM chief Babulal Marandi and JMM chief Shibu Soren who happens to be the sitting MP from Dumka. Nonetheless, the BJP leaders have ruled out postponement of the rally on this ground.