Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit on Sunday Rae Bareli, his first trip to the traditional seat of the Gandhi family...

Lucknow, Dec 15 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit on Sunday Rae Bareli, his first trip to the traditional seat of the Gandhi family. He will also visit Allahabad to review preparations for the Kumbh Mela to be held in the city next year. Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party media co-incharge Navin Srivastava told PTI, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Rae Bareli and then he will be in Allahabad." 

Modi will hold a public meeting and flag off the Humsafar Express on Sunday, an official said. According to district officials, the prime minister will lay the foundation stone and inaugurate projects worth Rs 1,100 crore during the visit. On Thursday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had visited Rae Bareli to oversee preparations for the visit. He also took a tour of the Rail Coach Factory in the district.

Humsafar Express

The prime minister's visit is being seen as a strategy of the BJP to pin the Congress leadership in their respective constituencies in the 2019 general election. Rae Bareli is represented in the Lok Sabha by former Congress chief and UPA (United Progressive Alliance) chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Modi's visit was planned before the counting of votes polled in the five states was taken up on December 11, following which the Congress party threw out BJP governments in three states - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Sonia Gandhi has not visited Rae Bareli since April. Before that, she visited the constituency in mid-2016. Also, she did not campaign in the constituency during the 2017 UP election, after she developed a health issue during a roadshow in Varanasi. The Congress has accused the Modi government of derailing the development of Rae Bareli. Union Finance minister and Rajya Sabha member Arun Jaitley had recently spent his Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) funds on developmental works in the constituency.

Arun Jaitley

Modi is likely to visit Uttar Pradesh again on December 29 to issue a commemorative postal stamp on backward caste Maharaja Suheldev Rajbhar and lay the foundation stone of infrastructure projects in Ghazipur.