It is not often that the Bharatiya Janata Party deploys its entire top leadership — including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and party president J.P. Nadda — to campaign for people’s votes in a single Parliamentary constituency.
Over the past three months, these BJP heavyweights have held separate public meetings in the Berhampur Lok Sabha seat, which lies in Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s home district, as the saffron party makes an audacious attempt to penetrate the fortress of the CM’s Biju Janata Dal.
Berhampur is one of four Lok Sabha seats where polling will take place on May 13, the first phase of the election in Odisha; the other three seats are Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, and Koraput. Along with the general election, 28 Assembly constituencies will also go to the polls simultaneously.
