External affairs minister S Jaishankar on Sunday emphasised the need for India to have a strong and decisive leader like Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the present decade as global turbulence shows no signs of abating.
The minister is among the big guns deployed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the constituency, with party president Jagat Prakash Nadda and Union commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal landing on Sunday and home minister Amit Shah slated to arrive on Monday evening to ensure that PM Modi wins the seat again by a record margin.
On a two-day visit to the poll-bound Kashi, where voting is scheduled to be held on June 1, the minister said the key to Viksit Bharat 2047 (a developed India by 2047) was economic growth, stability and robust national security, all of which could only be provided by a leader like Narendra Modi. Addressing private educationists at Sunbeam School, Jaishankar explained at length that India needs to compete with the world, including adversarial powers such as China, so that the dream of a developed India could be achieved.
While the BJP is comfortably poised to retain the seat, the party is leaving nothing to chance in the campaign. Goyal landed late Sunday night to address young entrepreneurs, the Banarsi Textile Industry Association, food service workers and businessmen on Monday. UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath has also shifted base from Lucknow to Varanasi and Gorakhpur to ensure that the BJP sweeps Poorvanchal in the high-stakes Lok Sabha elections in the political bellwether state of Uttar Pradesh.