Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi are to tour Gujarat in September. Elections to the 182-seat Gujarat Assembly are due by December 2017.

Also, President Ram Nath Kovind is expected to visit Gujarat for the first time after assuming office next month. According to sources, he is likely to visit the Saurashtra region, Mehsana and Ahmedabad on September 3. Prior to assuming the office of President, he has visited the state as President of the Akhil Bharatiya Koli Samaj and has been in close touch with the community.

On September 4, Gandhi will meet party office-bearers in Ahmedabad as part of his poll campaign. He will launch zonal campaigns from Dwarka later in September, when he plans to stay in each of the four Congress zones across the state for three days at a stretch and gear up the party machinery for the elections.

Last week he had appointed various office-bearers and four regional heads for the party's campaign, seen as undercutting the influence and power of the Gujarat Pradesh Congress President Bharatsinh Solanki. Interestingly, it was seen as fulfillment of the demand raised by rebel leader Shankersinh Vaghela, who was subsequently expelled from the party along with others. Strangely, the moribund party was rejuvenated recently by the pyrrhic victory of Congress veteran Ahmed Patel in a keenly-contested Rajya Sabha election that also virtually split the party. Since then, the 44 Congress MLAs have emerged as the party’s new, state-level mascots and are being felicitated at different places.

PM Modi, accompanied by his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, will visit Gujarat on September 13. They are likely to sign an agreement on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai Bullet Train, lay the foundation stone of the project, and ink some other bilateral tie-ups, sources said on Monday.

Modi will again visit his home state on September 17 to celebrate his birthday and pay a visit to the Sardar Sarovar dam to participate in the Narmada Yatra.

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