In 400 seats push, Modi sets 80/80 target for UP

PM attacks Rahul Gandhi in his home seat of Varanasi over Cong leader's drunk youth' comment

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday set an ambitious target for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh as part of his quest for 400 seats for the National Democratic Alliance in the 2024 general elections, saying India's most populous state had decided to give all 80 seats to his party and hitting out at the Opposition for being dynastic and corrupt.

In a two-day-long visit to his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, Modi inaugurated the foundation stones of projects worth 13,000 crore for the Purvanchal region and spoke at three places. He hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his recent comment on the youth of the state and accused the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) of casteist politics that hurt the progress of Dalits and tribals.

"This time, Modi is giving the guarantee of saturation of benefits. Hence this time, UP has also decided to give all 80 seats to Modi. This means in UP, 100% of the seats will be with the NDA," he said at Karkhiyaon in Varanasi.

Uttar Pradesh, which sends the largest chunk of members to the Lok Sabha, formed the backbone of the BJP's sweeping victories in 2014 and 2019, especially in north India. The BJP won 71 seats in 2014 (73 with allies), its highest tally so far, and 62 (64 with allies) in 2019.

The most impressive Lok Sabha performance in UP has been by the Bharatiya Lok Dal in 1977, when it swept all the 85 seats in the state at the time.

Modi reached the city around 9.50pm on Thursday and reviewed work at 11pm. On Friday, he spoke at a function to commemorate the 647th birth anniversary of Sant Ravidas, interacted with winners of the "Sansad Sanskrit Pratiyogita" at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), inaugurated several projects and addressed a rally at Karkhiyaon. He also used a virtual reality headset to inspect the Kashi Ropeway project.