Today in Politics: PM Modi to hold roadshow in Kolkata; Rahul-Akhilesh rally in Varanasi

Kolkata set to vote in the final Lok Sabha election phase on June 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold his first roadshow in this poll season in Kolkata on Tuesday evening.

But first, Modi will campaign for Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) founder Shibu Soren’s daughter-in-law Sita Soren who is the BJP candidate from Dumka. The event is scheduled to begin at 12.15 pm. Sita’s late husband Durga Soren was considered a “natural successor” to Shibu. But his death in 2009 due to a brain haemorrhage led to the elevation of his younger brother Hemant Soren as the next leader. With her sister-in-law and Hemant’s wife Kalpana gaining popularity after her husband’s arrest in a case of alleged money laundering, Sita jumped ship and joined the BJP in March.

The PM will then travel to West Bengal for a two-day visit. He will address a public meeting in Ashoknagar in North 24 Parganas district’s Barasat constituency around 2.30 pm and address an election rally in Baruipur in Jadavpur constituency in South 24 Parganas district. That event is scheduled to begin at 4 pm. After addressing the public meeting there, the PM will hold a 2.5-km roadshow from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s statute at the Shyambazar five-point crossing in north Kolkata to Swami Vivekananda’s ancestral house. The roadshow is scheduled to be held from 6 pm to 7 pm. The PM will be accompanied by state BJP president Sukanta Majumdar and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Suvendu Adhikari.

The PM is likely to meet monks of different monastic orders and, according to BJP sources, he may visit the home of Sarada Devi in Bagbazar. Sarada Devi was the wife of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the Hindu mystic after whom his disciple Swami Vivekananda named the Ramakrishna