PM, Naveen Set For High-Voltage Campaign In Twin Cities

Bhubaneswar: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik will have a show of strength and popularity in the twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack on Tuesday afternoon, hours before campaigning for the second phase of polls in Odisha comes to an end in the evening.

The chief minister has conducted a series of road shows for the first phase of elections to four Lok Sabha seats of Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Berhampur and Koraput and 28 Assembly segments on April 11. He is now campaigning for the second phase polls scheduled for April 18. But this will be the first time that the Prime Minister will hold a road show in the state and that, too, in Bhubaneswar.

As per schedule, the Prime Minister will arrive at the VSS Airport in Jharsuguda at 10.30am and proceed to Sambalpur to address the Vijay Sankalp Samavesh. After addressing the meeting, he will leave for Bhubaneswar, arriving at the Biju Patnaik International Airport at 4pm. From the airport, he will conduct a road show all the way till the Baramunda ground, crossing Ganganagar, OUAT, Siripur and Siva temple near City Women’s College.

The Chief Minister, as scheduled, will begin a marathon campaign in Bijepur Assembly segment in Bargarh district on Tuesday morning and address public meetings at Bargarh, Barpali and Gaisilat. Later, he will leave for Raghunathpalli on the outskirts of Rourkela in Sundargarh district and conduct a road show there.

After the road show, he will leave for Cuttack city and arrive at Chhata in the afternoon from where he will move across the city and conduct road shows at 43 places.

This is not the first time that the chief minister has conducted parallel events. On January 5, he had attended a mega state-level convention of women self-help groups in Puri to counter the public meeting of the Prime Minister in Baripada on the same day. Ten days later, the Chief Minister had inaugurated the five-day Krushi Odisha Sammilani, an annual farmers’ convention, at Baramunda Ground in Bhubaneswar, coinciding with Modi’s public meeting in Balangir.