Prime Minister Narendra Modi has more than doubled the number of election rallies attended by his Congress rival Rahul Gandhi until the third phase of the 2024 Assembly polls. Even with the addition of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s public meetings, his rally numbers are very high. Former Speaker of Parliament.
Prime Minister Modi and Rahul Gandhi began campaigning for their respective parties on March 31, almost 15 days after the Election Commission of India announced the general election schedule.
Prime Minister Modi addressed 83 election rallies in 18 states and union territories between March 31 and May 5, the last campaigning day of the third phase elections. In contrast, the figure for Wayanad Congress MPs is 40, according to publicly available data compiled and analyzed by India Today.
The analysis includes public meetings and roadshows attended by Prime Minister Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. All four leaders are star campaigners for their respective parties.
In the first three phases, Shah attended 66 election events and Priyanka was the chief speaker at 29 rallies. Notably, PM Modi’s number of supporters (83) was higher than Rahul and Priyanka’s combined rally of 69, and only three more than Shah’s figure.
gradual division
Prime Minister Modi maintained his commanding position in a whirlwind campaign through three phases.
In the 18-day first phase starting March 31, he addressed 31 rallies, followed by Rahul Gandhi with 21, Amit Shah with 18 and Priyanka Gandhi with nine. followed.
However, the Prime Minister lost his lead in the second phase from April 18 to April 24. During this period, Shah topped in 29 rallies/roadshows (including his local constituency Gandhinagar) while Rahul Gandhi came last in eight rallies. The Prime Minister has held 16 rallies and Priyanka has attended 10 similar events.
There is another clear underlying phenomenon in the second stage. Top leaders of both parties, Mr. Modi and Mr. Rahul, appear to be taking a backseat to Mr. Shah and Priyanka.
In the third phase, PM Modi again topped the list with 36 rallies, followed by Shah (29), Rahul (11) and Priyanka (10).
Political parties were given 18 days to campaign in the first phase, seven days in the second phase, and 11 days in the third phase.
States in focus
Analysis by India Today shows that while Bharatiya Janata Party leaders focus on the northern Hindi heartland, the Gandhi brothers focus on the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. It is targeting voters in the states of
After 12 rallies, Maharashtra, which is considered a swing state, has emerged at the top of PM Modi’s list in the first three phases. He addressed 10 rallies in Uttar Pradesh, sent a record 80 MPs to Lok Sabha, Karnataka and Rajasthan eight times, and Bihar and West Bengal (six times). , followed by Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat (6 times).
While 40 rallies were in Hindi-speaking states, nearly 17 per cent of the 83 rallies were in peninsular India, namely Kerala (2), Tamil Nadu (3), Karnataka (8) and Telangana. Held in the state (once).
So is Home Minister Amit Shah. According to the analysis, almost 16.6 percent of his rallies were held in southern states.
On the contrary, 58 percent of Rahul Gandhi’s rallies and 33 percent of Priyanka’s rallies were held in southern India. Rahul and Priyanka have addressed the most public meetings in Kerala, 13 and six, respectively.
While they appeared to be working in tandem, Priyanka appeared to be balancing the activities between north and south. Both Congress leaders addressed four rallies each in Karnataka and Maharashtra.
strike rate
Prime Minister Modi, 73, has addressed more rallies per day as the election has progressed, but the average number of rallies addressed per day by Rahul Gandhi has declined.
The Prime Minister’s daily average in the first stage was 1.72, in the second stage 2.28 and in the third stage 3.27, which continues to increase.
In the case of Rahul Gandhi, 53, the number of rallies per day was 1.16 in the first phase, 1.14 in the second phase and one in the third phase. His strike rate is lower than Shah’s one rally per day in the first phase, 2.71 in the second phase and 2.63 in the third phase.
(Dolly Chingakam and Avinav Rajvansh of India Today Research contributed to this report.. )
