Lok Sabha Election 2024: After Bihar, MP and Bengal, PM Modi to hold rally in Maharashtra today

Commencing the Lok Sabha poll campaign in Maharashtra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday will hold a mega rally in the state’s Chandrapur district.

Modi will hold at least 10 rallies in the state, starting with Chandrapur on April 8.

BJP is fielding Sudhir Mungantiwar, the sitting forest, cultural affairs and fisheries minister of Maharashtra under Eknath Shinde's cabinet from the district.

Modi will be campaigning for Mungantiwar. Meanwhile, the Congress party has fielded Pratibha Dhanorkar from the seat. She is the widow of Balu Dhanorkar, who passed away last year at 47, reported Hindustan Times.

The Maharashtra BJP unit plans to hold multiple rallies by Modi in seats across the state. Following his rally in Maharashtra's Chandrapur on Monday, PM Modi will once again visit the state on April 14 to address a rally in Ramtek.

"PM Modi is coming here to interact with the people in the Gadchiroli and Chandrapur area. PM Modi will interact about the country's development and about several other things related to the constituency,” Mungantiwar was quoted as saying.

He also alleged that for the last four years, Congress MP Balu Dhanorkar, who won in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls did not carry out any development work in the area.

In the last Lok Sabha elections BJP won 23 out of 25 seats it contested in alliance with undivided Shiv Sena. Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the second-largest after Uttar Pradesh. 

In the 2019 elections, Congress candidate Balu Dhanorkar won from the Chandrapur seat. Dhanorkar, however, passed away at a private hospital in Delhi in May 2023 at the age of 47.

Elections to the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra will be held in five phases on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, and May 20.