New Delhi: When Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates the Saryu Canal project worth Rs 9,800 crore in Balrampur and addresses local people on Saturday, he will invoke the memory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the first prime minister from the BJP, who had started his parliamentary journey from here.
Vajpayee had a long and happy association with Balrampur, something local people who had seen him in the early days of his career still talk about. Balrampur had proved to be a happy hunting ground for Vajpayee.
In the 1957 general elections, Vajpayee had contested from three seats as a Jan Sangh nominee. He had finished fourth in Mathura and second in Lucknow. He won from Balrampur to make his entry into Lok Sabha for the first time.
In 1962, he contested from Balrampur and Lucknow, but lost both. In 1967, he again tried his luck from Balrampur and won.
Vajpayee's colleague and former MLA Shukdev Prasad termed the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a matter of "good fortune for us".
"The place where the prime minister will hold a public meeting on Saturday is called 'Ikhatar ka ilaka', which was considered as the citadel of Atal ji. He often used to sit for hours in this area," Prasad said.
Recalling his association with the late prime minister, Prasad said, "Atalji used to worry about the problems of farmers because irrigation was a major issue. Now with the Saryu Canal project, lakhs of farmers will benefit."
There is a lot of enthusiasm among the local people around Modi's visit to the "karmabhoomi" of Vajpayee to dedicate to the nation the Saryu Canal project, he said.
The Balrampur Lok Sabha seat was won by Daddan Mishra of the BJP in 2014, but in 2019, it went to Ram Shiromani Verma of the BSP.