Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Dausa in eastern Rajasthan on February 4, where he will inaugurate the Gurugram-Dausa section of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, the foundation stone of which was laid in March 2019.
He will be accompanied by union minister of road and transport Nitin Gadkari. The eight-lane expressway is expected to reduce travel time between Dausa to Delhi to two hours.
This will be the PM’s second visit to Rajasthan in one week. The PM on January 28 attended the birth anniversary of Devnarayan, a folk deity revered by the Gurjars at Malesari village in Bhilwara district.
On the same day after the inauguration, the PM will also attend a programme and address a gathering of the Meena community at Meena high court in Nangal Pyariwas sub-district.
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With assembly elections due in Rajasthan this year-end, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making efforts to reach out to different communities in the state. After the Gurjars, the BJP is now trying to woo the Meena community.
According to the people familiar with the development, state BJP in-charge Arun Singh has already apprised BJP Rajya Sabha MP and Meena leader Dr Kirori Meena of the PM’s visit and preparations are underway.
“Senior party leaders have spoken to Kirori ji and he has already directed his supporters and BJP workers to make preparations for the PM’s visit. The BJP workers will go door-to-door and distribute peele chawal (turmeric rice). We are expecting over 2 lakh people at the PM’s meeting,” said a close aide of Meena. It is customary in Rajasthan to invite people to functions by giving them yellow rice.
Eastern Rajasthan, which has a large presence of Meenas and Gurjars, has been BJP’s Achilles heel. In the 2018 assembly elections, of the 35 seats in Alwar, Dausa, Bharatpur, Dholpur, Karauli and Sawai Madhopur, the BJP only managed to win three. The Meena community, which usually votes en bloc, can affect outcomes on around 30 assembly seats.
The PM’s visit to Dausa will be his fourth to Rajasthan in five months. Earlier, the PM visited Sirohi in October 2022 and Mangadh Dham in Banswara district in November 2022.
Party insiders say that the PM’s visits indicate that the coming elections will be fought under his face and leadership. “Given the internal factionalism the party’s central leadership does not want to take any chances,” said a party leader.
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While officially, the BJP maintains that the PM’s visits are not political, the political outreach is apparent.
The BJP is eyeing the votes of the Gurjar community that appears to be unhappy with the Congress over sidelining former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot.
Gurjars hold sway on about 30 assembly seats in eastern Rajasthan. In the 2018 assembly elections, the BJP fielded nine Gurjars but all lost. The Gurjar community voted almost en masse for the Congress in the hope that Sachin Pilot, a Gurjar, would become Rajasthan chief minister. All eight Gurjar candidates fielded by the Congress, won.
Being built at a cost of nearly ₹100,000 crore, the 1,390 km Delhi-Mumbai Expressway will be India’s longest expressway and will reduce travel time between Delhi and Mumbai from 24 hours to 12 hours.
It is likely to be completed by March 2023 and is being built as part of the first phase of the ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’.
