Narendra Modi to address mega rally in Gorakhpur today

Lucknow, Jan 23: BJP's prime ministerial candidate

will address a public rally in Gorakhpur in

on Thursday and in view of the security threat to him, seven additional companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary have been sent to guard the rally venue.

Before reaching the rally site, Modi will halt at the Gorakhnath temple and perform 'puja' there, the district magistrate's office in Gorakhpur informed.

A state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson said onWednesday that Modi, who is also the Gujarat chief minister, will make a brief stopover in Varanasi where he will arrive in a special aircraft from Ahmedabad.

After interacting with party workers at the airport, he will leave for the rally to be held in Manbela, Gorakhpur, in a chopper, party leaders said. Gorakhpur is 270 km from the state capital Lucknow.

Inspector General of Police (law and order) Amrendra Singh Senger told IANS that four superintendents of police (SP) rank officials, eight additional SPs and 13 deputy SPs have been deployed for supervising the BJP's "Vijay Shankhnaad Rally".

This is Modi's sixth mega rally in UP starting since October last year

Modi has so far addressed rallies in Kanpur (Oct 19, 2013), Jhansi (Oct 25), Bahraich (Nov 8), Agra (Nov 21) and Varanasi (Dec 20) in the Hindi heartland in a bid to galvanize the party cadres. He will address one more rally in Meerut on February 2 after which the series of "Shankhnaad" rallies will culminate in a "Maha rally" in Lucknow on March 2.

BJP has 10 Lok Sabha seats from the state and hopes to revisit the 57-seat mark of 1998. Modi is spending considerable time in these rallies and his close aide and former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah has been made the UP in-charge by the party's national leadership.

IANS