Modi to campaign in Uttar Pradesh: BJP

New Delhi, Feb 10: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has skipped the BJP's poll campaign in Punjab and Uttarakhand, will drum up support for the party in Uttar Pradesh elections.

"Yes, he will participate in election campaign of BJP in Uttar Pradesh..the dates are being finalised," BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters today in reply to a question. Modi has stayed away from the party's poll campaign in Punjab and Uttarakhand and has so far remained silent on campaigning for the party in Uttar Pradesh.

When asked whether the party has taken Modi's consent on his campaign in UP, Naqvi said, "We have talked to him." Admitting that the party needed him in its poll campaign, the BJP leader said certain developments in Gujarat had kept the firebrand chief minister preoccupied in his home state due to which he could not campaign for the party so far in the poll-bound states.

Earlier, senior BJP leader LK Advani had remained non- committal on whether Modi would campaign in Uttar Pradesh or not.

The two leaders are reported to be having differences over certain issues ever since the party's national executive meeting in Delhi last year, but the two shared the stage and praised each other during Advani's Jan Chetna Yatra ahead of the Winter session of Parliament.

The second phase of the seven phase Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held tomorrow.

PTI