Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address around 1 lakh members of women’s self-help groups (SHGs) at an event to be held in Bhari village in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal on Wednesday. He will also unveil a 41-foot statue of Jana Sangh ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya. Modi’s visit is considered to be significant ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls. According to a statement issued by the government, PM Modi is expected to arrive in Yavatmal at 4.30 pm on Wednesday to inaugurate development projects worth Rs 4,900 crore, including the disbursement of funds under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi and the Maharashtra Rajya Namo Shetkari Samman Yojana which entails an annual credit of Rs 12,000 (Rs 6,000 each from the Centre and state) to individual farmers. This will be Narendra Modi’s fifth visit to Yavatmal. As Gujarat Chief Minister, he had first visited the backward district, which falls under Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, in 2004 when the region recorded the highest rate of farmer suicides owing to an agrarian crisis during the tenure of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre and the Congress-NCP government in the state. Modi’s second visit to the district was ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when he was projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Modi had then interacted with farmers in Arni village. In February 2019, ahead of that year’s Lok Sabha polls, he visited Pandharkawada in Yavatmal district and addressed women's self-help groups. PM Modi’s visits and significance Modi has been frequently visiting Maharashtra over the last year to launch various projects. Although the Maharashtra BJP unit says his visits are merely official, its larger political connotations cannot be ignored. With 48 Lok Sabha seats, the state is extremely important for the BJP which has set a 370-plus target for itself and aims for over 400 seats under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. From infrastructure to irrigation, PM Modi has launched multiple projects covering regions across Maharashtra over the last year. In January this year, he was in the state twice within eight days. In Solapur on January 19, he inaugurated a low-cost housing project for 30,000 families of unorganised workers. At present, 15,000 houses are ready for allotment under the massive project spread across 350 acres. On January 12, PM Modi addressed the 27th National Youth Festival in Nashik, visited the famous Kala Ram temple and carried out a cleanliness drive. In Navi Mumbai, he dedicated the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sewri-Nhava Sheva Atal Setu, India's longest bridge which promises faster connectivity to Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. The 21.8-km bridge over the sea cost Rs 1,780 crore. On December 11, 2023, PM Modi was in Nagpur to dedicate the first phase of the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Mahamarg to the nation. The 701 km stretch cris s-crossing ten districts was an ambitious project envisaged by BJP leader and former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis during his 2014-2019 tenure. Modi also flagged off the Nagpur-Bilaspur Vande Bharat Express that day, inaugurated AIIMS, Nagpur and laid the foundation for a Rs 6,700 crore road project and rail works in the Vidarbha region. On December 4 last year, he arrived in Sindhudurg-Ratnagiri to witness an operational demonstration by the Indian Navy's ships and special forces. He also unveiled a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Fort. In Ahmednagar on October 26, 2023, he dedicated a canal of the Nilwande dam to the people. The Rs 5,177-crore irrigation project had been pending for three decades. His visit on August 1 last year saw Modi being conferred the Lokmanya Tilak National Award in Pune where he flagged off a Metro train and laid the foundation stone for a waste-to-energy plant under the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. On February 10, 2023, he was in Mumbai to flag off two Vande Bharat trains – Mumbai-Shirdi and Mumbai-Solapur. He also inaugurated the Santacruz Chembur Link Road and Kurar Underpass, besides an Arabic academy campus of the Dawoodi Bohra community. On January 19, 2023, he visited Mumbai to inaugurate the Mumbai Metro Line 2A and 7.
