Bhopal: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will on Monday begin his party’s campaign in Madhya Pradesh as the state heads towards elections and also know as the BJP stronghold. Posters portraying Mr. Gandhi as a devotee of Lord Shiva has come up in the state.

At the start, he will meet the public in a roadshow and then address the party workers during his whole day visit to Bhopal.

As soon as he arrives in the capital Bhopal, Rahul Gandhi is slated for a 15-kilometer long roadshow beginning from Lalghati Chowk, which is located close to the airport of the city. He will seek blessings of more than 11 Hindu priests, according to the state party spokesperson Pankaj Chaturvedi. At the end of the road show, he will address a gathering of the party cadres.

Apart from that, he is also going to address a meeting of Congress workers before leaving, which can be attended by the general public too. The state party spokesperson added “We are upbeat as our leader is coming to launch the election campaign,” Mr. Chaturvedi said.

Before his visit, the state’s main opposition party has put up wall posters and banners in the city of Bhopal portraying the 48-year-old Congress chief, who just returned from a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar as a ‘Shiv bhakt’.

The city is under strict vigilance with security being tightened up in the city over the visit of Mr. Gandhi, Bhopal Inspector General (IG) of Police Jaideep Prasad said. “We have got an extra force of 1,500 policemen who have already been deputed,” he said.

When Mr. Prasad was asked about the anticipate of protests during the Congress chief’s visit, he said that they had not received any kind of such information with respect to that. “All steps are being taken to maintain law and order. I am personally monitoring the security arrangements and the routes Rahul Gandhi is going to pass through,” he said.

For the meet, Congress workers are flocking towards Madhya Pradesh state to welcome the party chief and take part in the meeting slated to be held in the day. “We are expecting more than one lakh Congress cadres in the state capital,” a police officer said.

Apart from that, a BJP leader said that the BJP party chief Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are slated to attend a function in Bhopal on September 25. Earlier to that, a visit by Amit Shah to Ujjain on September 12 was canceled.

“It was a tentative programme of Shahji that has been postponed as he along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to grace a function on September 25 here,” state BJP spokesperson Rajnish Agrawal said.

Preparations for the September 25 have already started to make it a big success, so in view of that, the event on September 12 was cancelled, he added.

When inquired whether the visit by Amit Shah to Ujjain has been changed to escape the anger of upper caste organisations, Mr. Agrawal replied with a negative answer.

Earlier this month on September 6, some upper caste groups had called for a countrywide ‘Bharat Bandh’ against the Parliament’ approval to amend the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act after some of its provisions were read down by the Apex Court.

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