Amit Shah to hold a door-to-door campaign & launch the umbrella campaign in Goa

|HT|

Union home minister and senior BJP leader Amit Shah will visit poll-bound Goa on Sunday and two public rallies, hold a door-to-door campaign in Sanvordem, and launch the umbrella campaign in Vasco-Da-Gama, among others. Shah's day-long engagements will be the first time any Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) star campaigner addressing a public meeting in the coastal state since the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced the poll schedule for the Assembly elections in five states earlier this month. According to an itinerary shared by Shah's office on Twitter, the Union minister will first visit the Sai Baba Temple at Borim around 2.45pm, followed by a public rally at the Sun Grace Garden in Ponda at 3.30pm. Following this, he will go on a door-to-door campaign in Sanvordem at 5pm and address another public rally at the town's Sharda Mandir Multipurpose Hall. His day-long trip will end with a town hall and launch of the umbrella campaign in Vasco. On Saturday, BJP's Goa unit chief Sadanand Shet Tanavade said all the three public meetings of Shah will take place indoors with 50 per cent seating capacity and all protocols pertaining to Covid-19 will be in place. He added the Union minister's Vasco rally will be live streamed in 10 different Assembly constituencies simultaneously. Last week, the ECI extended its ban on physical rallies and roadshows in all poll-bound states in wake of the third wave of Covid-19, driven by the Omicron variant till January 31 However, relaxations have been granted for public meetings with an upper limit of 500 people in the constituencies where polls will be held in the first phase. Moreover, indoor meetings have been permitted with a maximum of 300 people or 50 per cent of the venue's capacity. The committee has also raised the upper limit for door-to-door campaigns to 10 from the earlier five.

The BJP has released names of all candidates for the 40-seats of the Goa assembly ahead of the polls next month. The party has fielded Krishna Viswambhar Salkar from the Vasco-Da-Gama constituency, and Ravi Sitaram Naik and Ganesh Gaonkar from the Ponda and Sanvordem seats, respectively. Chief minister Pramod Sawant has been fielded from the Sanquelim seat.

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