Battleground 2024: PM Modi's first Delhi address to see two dozen diplomats

Apart from party-organised visits, several diplomats are travelling on their own to get a first-hand experience of election campaigning in the world's largest democracy

Two dozen diplomats from across the world will attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public meeting in Delhi on Saturday, his first in the city during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

After the interest expressed by several foreign missions to understand the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) election preparedness, from the logistics involved in its polling-booth management to observing in person the “connect” the Prime Minister has with the people, the foreign affairs department of the ruling party has organised visits of diplomats to various parts of the country.

The BJP has plans to host dozens of diplomats later this month in Varanasi, Modi’s constituency, which will vote on June 1.

A delegation of diplomats will head to Odisha, and a couple of delegations have already visited Rajasthan and Gujarat.

With the seven seats of Delhi scheduled to vote on May 25, the Prime Minister will address a public meeting in Ghonda, which falls in the North East Delhi constituency. The contest there is between the Congress’ Kanhaiya Kumar, a well-known student leader, and the BJP’s Manoj Tiwari, the Bhojpuri actor and singer, and the only MP (of the party’s seven in Delhi) it did not drop for the 2024 polls.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will address a rally at Ramlila Ground, which will be his first after the March 31 joint rally of the INDIA bloc of parties to express solidarity with the Aam Aadmi Party following the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The BJP is working hard to make the public meeting successful. The diplomats, 25-30, from the UK, Australia, Nordic countries, Africa and small countries in the Pacific Islands, will gather at the BJP’s headquarters in central Delhi and head to the rally ground. The BJP’s foreign affairs department, headed by Vijay Chauthaiwale, has since the beginning of the Lok Sabha elections on April 19, organised visits of diplomats to Jodhpur in Rajasthan and Gujarat. A group of diplomats is set to visit Odisha.

In the runup to the polling in Gujarat, a group of 22 diplomats spent a day in Anand, where they attended Modi’s rally and also walked with the BJP’s local Lok Sabha candidate on his door-to-door campaigning in the heat and attended his meetings in housing societies.

“The diplomats were surprised that the PM’s rally drew an audience of 200,000 people and his connect with the people,” a BJP foreign affairs department functionary said.

“The diplomats are keen to understand the BJP’s polling-booth management, the logistics, scale and depth of organising its election campaigns,” the BJP leader said.

Apart from the BJP organising visits of diplomats to its rallies and party offices, some have travelled on their own to witness campaigning. On April 19, Philip Green, Australian high commissioner to India, posted on X his intent to experience first-hand India’s national polls, the largest electoral process in the world. Green was in Kerala. “I’ll be dropping in to campaigns of as many sides as possible and am keen to hear the opinions of as many on the streets as possible,” he posted, and later attended the campaigns of the BJP and Congress candidates in Thiruvananthapuram, Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Shashi Tharoor, respectively.

Tammy Ben-Haim, Israeli’s consul-general to South India, reposted the Election Commission’s notification and described India as her “favourite largest democracy in the world”.

The BJP had organised visits of diplomats to observe its election campaigning during the Assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat in December 2022 and the Assembly polls in the Hindi heartland at the end of 2023.