Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday addressed his first rally in Bihar after the announcement of the Assembly poll dates in the State.

He will be the main campaigner for his party in the Bihar elections and is expected to address more than 20 rallies over a month (the last date of campaigning is November 3 in this five-phase polls), a situation which could see him visit the State every other day of the month. How does that compare with his campaigning track record?
Data put together by The Hindu reveal that the Prime Minister tends to campaign in very intense bouts, packing in multiple venues and events in a single day. His public engagements in a particular State also dip after the polls are over.
The data, compiled from the Prime Minister’s website and Mr. Modi’s personal website, show that of the five States that have had elections since he assumed office, Mr. Modi has campaigned in all.
He held the most rallies and campaign events in Maharashtra — 24 (one rally in Nashik was cancelled due to rain) — which went to the polls on October 15 last year, while he spent the most days on the road campaigning, six days for nine rallies, in Jharkhand, which had its elections between November 25 and December 20 last year. The case of Maharashtra is astonishing since Mr. Modi seems to have packed in 24 rallies in just 10 days (October 4-13). In fact, between October 12 and 13, in the final burst of campaigning in the State, he addressed as many as eight rallies.
Mr. Modi held only five rallies over as many days in Delhi, which had its election on February 7 this year. The BJP lost the election to a wave in favor of the Aam Aadmi Party.
The data also show that official and party events sometimes run parallel to each other in poll-bound States. Between July and October 2014, the four months leading up to the Jammu and Kashmir elections, the Prime Minister visited the State four times for official functions, while he has had just one official function in the State since. Similarly, Mr. Modi’s first visit to Bihar since becoming the Prime Minister in May 2014 was on July 25, 2015, when he attended an official function in Patna, followed by a campaign rally in Muzaffarpur.
On Friday, Mr. Modi addressed a rally in Banka, his first in a series of 20 rallies he is expected to address in a month. The State will go to the polls in five phases from October 12.
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