Lok Sabha Elections 2024: PM Modi to be in Palakkad on March 15, Pathanamthitta on March 17

Palakkad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be making his fourth visit to Kerala in three months on March 15 and 17 ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. PM Modi will reach Palakkad on March 15 and hold a road show in the constituency. C Krishna Kumar of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will contest in the Palakkad constituency. He is also the BJP state vice-president. 

With 2.18 lakh votes, Krishnakumar, who finished third in Palakkad in the 2019 elections, increased the BJP's vote share by 6.5%.

The Prime Minister then will reach Pathanamthitta on March 17 to join the election campaigning with BJP candidate Anil Antony, son of Congress Working Committee member A.K. Antony. He will also participate in the public meeting as part of the campaign. This is the first time the Prime Minister is visiting Kerala after the announcement of the NDA candidate. 

Anil Antony embarrassed the national and state leadership of the Congress party last year when he defected to the BJP. According to reports, the BJP believes that Anil Antony's presence and the support of seasoned politician P.C. George—who just merged his party with the BJP—may boost their outreach to the Christian community in Central Kerala's rubber-growing belt.

Following the Save Sabarimala Campaign, the BJP received approximately 3 lakh votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, which increased its vote share by nearly 14% in the Pathanamthitta constituency. 

PM Modi arrived in the state for the third time in two months on February 27. He arrived in Thiruvananthapuram and revealed the names of four astronauts selected for India's groundbreaking Gaganyaan mission. He also addressed the public on the last day of BJP's Padayatra.

One of the key battles to watch out for will be for the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat where Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar will be taking on sitting MP and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.

 

The 12 BJP candidates from Kerala in the first list include:

 

* Kasaragod: M L Aswini

* Kozhikode: MT Ramesh

* Malappuram: Dr Abdul Salam

* Ponnani: Niveditha Subramanyam

* Palakkad: Krishna Kumar

* Kannur: C Raghunath

* Thrissur: Suresh Gopi

* Alappuzha: Sobha Surendran

* Pathanamthitta: Anil Antony

* Vadakara: Praful Krishnan

* Attingal: V Muraleedharan

* Thiruvananthapuram: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The BJP came out with its first list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections during a press conference held in the national capital on March 2. Among the prominent figures featured in the first list of 195 candidates are Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will be contesting from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, slated to run from Gandhinagar in Gujarat.