PM Modi to address his 1st UP virtual rally on Jan 31

New Delhi, Jan 29: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the first virtual rally for Uttar Pradesh on January 31. Reportedly, the meeting would cover at least four to five districts of the west UP region.

The BJP has its task cut out in Uttar Pradesh to break a jinx under which no party has won two consecutive assembly elections in the state after 1985.

Spread over seven phases, moving sequentially from the west to the east of the vast state, the 403-seat polls will have a major bearing on the 2024 parliamentary elections, when the party hopes to return to power in Delhi under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP had registered a landslide victory in 2017 assembly polls winning 312 seats on its own, and 325 if the those won by the allies are also counted. Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party was a distant second then at 49.

Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party won 19 seats. Apna Dal (Sonelal) got nine, two more than the Congress tally. The SP has emerged as the major contender to power, and the Congress is under pressure to come up with better numbers, now that the campaign is under the direct charge of general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Uttar Pradesh will vote on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7. The results will be declared on March 10 along with the four other poll-bound states of Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.