PM Narendra Modi to Celebrate Dussehra in Lucknow

Lucknow: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in Dussehra celebrations in Lucknow, the capital of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, on Tuesday.

Earlier PMs had attended the Dussehra function in New Delhi’s Ram Lila ground, which was also graced by the President and opposition leaders. Prime Minister Modi also took part in Dussehra celebrations in New Delhi during the last two years.

Modi’s latest decision to attend the celebrations in Lucknow assumes significance as the visit will happen at a time when the mood in the country is upbeat over the surgical strikes in PoK.

UP is headed for a keenly-contested three, if not, four cornered elections.

Lucknow mayor Dinesh Sharma, who is also BJP’s national vice-president and party’s Gujarat incharge, confirmed that Modi will attend the Dussehra functions at the Ram Lila grounds in Aishbagh.

The choice of the venue reflects the best of Lucknow’s centuries-old Hindu-Muslim composite culture. While reaching out to the minority community, Modi had said in Kozhikode: “Muslims should neither be rewarded nor punished without any reason, neither should they be considered a vote market."

Sharma, who had formally sent an invitation letter to Modi on Sunday, is the patron of the Shri Ram Lila Samiti, Aishbagh. Modi has already accepted the invite. Sharma, who is busy chalking out PM’s programme for the day, said Modi will also perform aarti at the Ram Lila grounds.

The PM had travelled to Siachen in J&K and Amritsar in Punjab on successive Diwali festivals in 2014 and 2015 when he had celebrated the festival with soldiers, a government source said.

His Lucknow visit ahead of the upcoming 2017 polls is expected to be followed by yet another visit to Gujarat on October 22 for inaugurating an airport building in Vadodara and witnessing the closing ceremony of the Kabaddi World Cup in Ahmedabad. Gujarat goes to polls in mid-2017.