PM to lay foundation stone for Sant Ravidas temple, address rally in MP's Sagar on Saturday

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Sant Ravidas in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district, where he will also address a public meeting, a state BJP minister said on Friday. This will be PM's second visit to the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state, where assembly polls are due by the year-end, in just over a month. On July 1, Modi interacted with tribal leaders, women who were members of self-help groups and young football players at Pakaria village in Shahdol district.

«Modiji will arrive in Khajuraho from New Delhi and take a helicopter to reach the Badtuma area in Sagar district around 2 pm to lay the foundation stone for a temple (dedicated to Sant Ravidas) and a museum coming up at a cost Rs 100 crore,» MP Cooperative and Public Services Minister Arvind Bhadoria told PTI over the phone. Half an hour later, he will reach the venue of the public meeting near the Dhana airstrip, about 20km from Badtuma, said Bhadoria, who is also the guardian minister of Sagar district located in north-east Madhya Pradesh. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expecting up to 2 lakh people to attend the PM's rally and the foundation laying ceremony for the temple dedicated to Sant Ravidas, who enjoys a nationwide following, especially among a section of Dalits.

The two programmes will also mark the culmination of the ruling party's ongoing 'Samrasta (harmony) Yatras', seen as an attempt by the saffron outfit to reach out to Dalits ahead of the crucial polls. «Five such yatras started from different parts of the state on July 25. The participants are bringing handful of soil from 53,000 villages and water from 315 water bodies, including sacred rivers.