TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will address a public meeting in Goa in the second week of January, ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The public meeting at Panjim, will be Modi’s first interaction with Goans after he was declared the party’s PM candidate.
Speaking to Herald, BJP state unit president Vinay Tendulkar said that more than one lakh people are expected to attend the meeting whose date has not been finalized yet. Party leaders including national president Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu and others are likely to be present.
“Modi’s public meeting in Goa would be one of the 100 meetings planned across the country as part of the parliamentary election campaign,” he said.
Modi’s selection as a poll campaign in-charge for the party was held in Goa during its national executive in June this year. Thereafter, the Gujarat chief minister had addressed a public meeting at Taleigao. A 12-member committee under the leadership of Modi has Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar as one of its members.
Parrikar was one of those BJP leader who had openly backed Modi for BJP’s PM candidate, despite senior leaders like L K Advani expressing displeasure.
Though, BJP has unofficially finalized its Lok Sabha candidates for Goa in the person of sitting MP Sripad Naik for north and Narendra Sawaikar for south, party colleague Vishnu Wagh has expressed his desire to contest from the north.
