Modi's Raebareli visit―what are the political implications?

Amidst the Congress stepping up its attack on him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will reach the home turf of UPA president Sonia Gandhi on Sunday, in the hopes of politically checkmating the grand old party.

Modi is reaching Raebareli for the first time and will unveil several welfare projects. The main aim of the prime minister is to kick off mission 2019―the upcoming general elections.

In political circles the visit has a lot of significance and it is being viewed as the BJP’s move to ‘besiege’ the high profile Gandhi family and the Congress in its pocket borough.

To give more teeth to its attack, the BJP has already positioned its finance minister Arun Jaitely in Raebareli.

This tour of the prime minister indicates that the BJP is eyeing the Congress's family seats―Raebareli and Amethi―in order to heal the scars of the recent defeats in the assembly polls of three important states of north India―Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

With the Lok Sabha polls approaching, Congress President Rahul Gandhi is directly attacking Modi and, in turn, the prime minister has chosen Raebareli to strike back.

With sops worth Rs 1,100 crore to Raebareli, Modi will be hoping to give the message to the voters of this parliamentary constituency that despite being a VVIP constituency, it was not adequately developed.

The BJP had, in the past, positioned its Union minister Smriti Irani in Amethi, Rahul’s constituency, but it didn't focus much on Raebareli. And now, it seems that the BJP has decided to focus on Raebareli, too, to avenge the recent assembly polls defeat.

In the last Lok Sabha polls, Modi did not hold any election meeting in Raebareli. But this time the party has chosen the issue of development in this constituency to straightaway lock horns with Modi.