Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to address a huge gathering of BJP workers in Bhopal on Tuesday, shortly before the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election. BJP president Amit Shah was also to speak at the event, called the Karyakarta Mahakumbh, which marks the birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, co-founder of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.

The event

The gathering at Jambooree Maidan in the BHEL area will be the largest congregation of political workers in the world, state BJP spokesman Sarvesh Tiwari claimed. Another spokesman, Rajnish Agrawal, said workers from 65,000 polling booths across the state’s 230 Assembly seats would attend, and that the party had booked nine special trains to bring them in.

The venue has been named Atal Mahakumbh Parisar after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who died in New Delhi in August. An exhibition hall named after the late former Union minister Anil Madhav Dave presents Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Deendayal Upadhyaya, Kushabhau Thakre, Vajpayee and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia as the five pillars of the BJP, which was founded in 1980 as the successor to the Jana Sangh. Agrawal said it would also trace the work of leaders including Vajpayee, Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Arrangements for the visit

Party leaders said Modi would land at Bhopal airport around noon and fly to the venue by helicopter with other leaders to avoid disrupting traffic, staying in the city for nearly three hours. Bhopal Inspector General Jaideep Prasad said nearly 6,000 personnel, including 4,000 from central and reserve forces, had been deployed for security.

What happened next

In the 2018 Madhya Pradesh Assembly election the Congress won 114 seats and the BJP 109, and Kamal Nath became Chief Minister.

See also: Bharatiya Janata Party and Elections.

Originally published on 25 September 2018. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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