Thousands of enthusiastic people greeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jabalpur city of Madhya Pradesh, as he officially launched his Lok Sabha campaign in the state by holding a mega road show on Sunday evening.

The PM held the road show through a distance of about 1.5 km, beginning from Bhagat Singh Chowk near Katangi up to Aadi Shankaracharya Chowk in the city.

Clad in a saffron kurta and black waistcoat with a lotus symbol pinned on it, Mr Modi greeted the people from an open jeep that was also painted saffron and decorated with flowers. The PM waved the BJP symbol of lotus held in his hand.

MP Chief Minister Dr Mohan Yadav and BJP’s Jabalpur candidate Ashish Dubey accompanied the PM in the open jeep.

Before beginning the road show, the PM garlanded the statue of Shaheed Bhagat Singh. He also garlanded the statues of Aadi Shankaracharya and Rani Durgavati.

Jabalpur is a part of the Mahakaushal region of MP, and four Lok Sabha seats come under the area. The high profile seat of Chhindwara also comes in the region.

Chhindwara is currently the only seat with the Congress out of the 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP, and Nakul Nath is the sitting Congress MP.

The other two seats in the region are tribal dominated Mandla and Balaghat.

Besides these four seats, the seats of Sidhi and Shahdol are the six seats in MP that go to polls in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on 19 April.

Jabalpur has been a stronghold of the BJP, which has been on the seat for the past 28 years since 1996.

There are 38 State Assembly seats in the region. The BJP has 21 of those seats while the Congress has 17 presently.

Throughout the roadshow, people chanted slogans like, ‘Jai Jai Shree Ram’, ‘jab tak suraj chand rahega, Modi tera naam rahega’, ‘Modi zindabad’, ‘abki baar 400 paar’, ‘Modi, Modi’ and many more in support of the PM and the BJP.

Tribal artists greeted the roadshow all along the way by performing dances. People showered petals on the vehicle taking the PM through the roadshow.

The SPG and the police set up a four layer security cordon throughout the route of the roadshow.