Union Home Minister Amit Shah will sound the Assembly poll bugle in Karnataka on Friday, when he addresses a massive rally in Mandya district, where BJP leaders expect a crowd of around one lakh people as the saffron party looks to make inroads into the old Mysuru region, dominated by the JD(S) and the Congress. Shah will arrive in Bengaluru on Thursday evening. After the rally, he will inaugurate a mega dairy in Mandya and return to Bengaluru for a cooperative convention scheduled at Palace Grounds in the city. A meeting with top party leaders of the state is also scheduled for Friday. The Union minister will visit the Souharda Sahakari Foundation at Malleshwaram in the state capital, following which he will take part in a meeting with the BJP’s booth presidents and booth-level agents on Saturday. He will leave for New Delhi the same evening. State Cooperation Minister S T Somashekar told reporters that the Mandya rally would strengthen the BJP. “Mandya will not remain a bastion of the JD(S) and the Congress in the coming days. They have already lost the Mandya Lok Sabha constituency,” he said. The constituency is represented by independent MP Sumalatha Ambareesh. “The BJP is trying to win maximum seats in Mandya, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Hassan and Ramanagara districts in the coming elections. There is a special focus to strengthen the party in the region,” he said. He said that zero-interest loans worth Rs 24,000 crore would be distributed among 33 lakh farmers during the cooperatives convention in Bengaluru. Women’s self-help groups would also be granted loans. Several prominent leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are expected to arrive in the state as the ruling BJP ramps up its efforts to secure a clear majority in the 2023 elections.
