MEERUT: PM Narendra Modi’s first poll rally in Meerut on Thursday drew lukewarm response. As compared to over 1 lakh who attended the PM's 2014 poll rally here, Thursday event saw only 15,000 in attendance. The low turnout caused a bit of embarrassment to BJP’s local cadre here.Explaining the low turnout, Gajender Sharma, media coordinator for the rally told TOI, “PM Modi’s was scheduled to arrive at 12:00 pm and the turnout was low until 11 am but number of supporters started increasing soon after. Besides, though four MPs were present in the rally, but voters from only two districts- Muzaffarnagar and Meerut- were called. In addition, the venue was also small this time so huge crowd was not expected anyway.”The turnout this year was too low as compared to PM’s Meerut rally in 2014 when the rally was attended by more than a lakh people. Modi sought votes for four sitting MPs – Meerut-Hapur (Rajendra Agrawal), Sanjeev Balyan (Muzaffarnagar), Kunwar Bhartendra Singh (Bijnor) and Satyapal Singh (Baghpat).Just a day before, the BJP leadership had predicted the turnout of more than a lakh supporters for which adequate security arrangements were in place involving. At least 1,000 police personnel, including five SPs, 20 DSPs, 50 inspectors, 150 sub-inspectors and 800 constables were deployed at and around the venue.Though the route diversions were in place, passengers on the Delhi-Dehradun National Highway had to face a lot of inconvenience. Traffic movements were affected near Siwaya Toll Plaza and chaos prevailed on the roads in the first half of the day.

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