BJP brands Modi’s Jind event Haryana’s 1st green rally

Gurugram: The day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Jind, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini drove up to the railway junction in an electric vehicle.

He got out, walked around the site with his ministers, and posted the video himself on the Haryana BJP’s X handle. The message was simple: No petrol, no diesel, not even for the man in charge of the state.

“This will be the first rally by the party where no diesel or petrol vehicles will be used. This is our first eco-friendly rally to welcome Prime Minister Narendra Modi-ji, who is coming to flag off the first green hydrogen train of the country and to launch several other infrastructural projects for the state,” Saini said in the second video posted on the X handle of Haryana BJP.

Saini added that even in other districts of Haryana where people will watch PM’s speech on TV screens, no petrol or diesel vehicles would be used.

He said that the ministers who are assigned duties in the districts will also use EVs or CNG vehicles for their travel.

प्रधानमंत्री श्री @NarendraModi जी के प्रस्तावित दौरे से पहले मुख्यमंत्री श्री नायब सिंह सैनी जी और प्रदेश अध्यक्ष डॉ. अर्चना गुप्ता जी ने जींद रेलवे स्टेशन पहुंचकर तैयारियों का जायजा लिया।

साथ ही अधिकारियों को व्यवस्थाओं का निरीक्षण करते हुए आवश्यक दिशा-निर्देश दिए।… pic.twitter.com/jVOUGt2bjB

— Haryana BJP (@BJP4Haryana) July 16, 2026

Modi landed in Jind Friday morning and flagged off the country’s first hydrogen-powered train, which will run between Jind and Sonipat. It was his first visit to the district in nearly 12 years.

From the HSVP ground, he inaugurated or laid the foundation for several other projects—the Kurukshetra elevated railway track, the Haryana stretch of the Delhi-Jammu-Katra Expressway, and government medical colleges at Koriyawas in Narnaul and at Bhiwani—all virtually, alongside his public address.

Around the hydrogen train, the state government built an entire ‘green’ transport plan. The government deployed 146 electric buses to ferry people to Jind, mainly from Jind itself, Hansi and Gohana. CNG buses and e-rickshaws handled last-mile movement to the venue. People from the rest of Haryana did not travel to Jind at all. They watched Modi’s speech on LED screens set up in all 22 districts, with ministers and MPs deputed as chief guests at each screening.

The BJP posted another video on it X showing Haryana Minister Mahipal Dhanda leading BJP workers on bicycles towards Panipat’s Arya PG College, where the party had organised an event to telecast PM’s rally for that district.

आज माननीय प्रधानमंत्री श्री @NarendraModi जी हरियाणा को अनेक नायाब सौगातें प्रदान करेंगे।

इस ऐतिहासिक कार्यक्रम के सीधा प्रसारण को देखने के लिए पानीपत के आर्य पीजी कॉलेज में विशेष आयोजन किया गया।

कैबिनेट मंत्री श्री @MAHIPALDHANDA1 जी पानीपत ग्रामीण के सभी साथियों के साथ… pic.twitter.com/mPzB94BHSh

— Haryana BJP (@BJP4Haryana) July 17, 2026

Talking to ThePrint ahead of the visit, Rajya Sabha MP and former state BJP president Subhash Barala explained the idea behind the PM’s event. He said the party wanted to send a message about saving petrol and diesel. He recalled that Modi had appealed to the country to cut fuel use when the Gulf war was at its peak, and had trimmed the vehicles in his own convoy at the time, with chief ministers and ministers following suit and giving up local pilot vehicles.

Barala said he was in Sirsa as chief guest for the screening there, and had reached on an electric vehicle himself. He said Union minister Manohar Lal Khattar was doing the same in Karnal, and so were other ministers and MPs at their assigned districts, with Saini and the rest of the cabinet using EVs or CNG vehicles to reach their venues. He said this was, as far as he knew, the first such rally by any party in Haryana.

The Opposition, however, was not impressed. Senior Congress leader and former MP Brijendra Singh said the party’s first concern was what Modi was giving Haryana in terms of projects. On the eco-friendly claim itself, he said Modi’s original appeal had not been about fuel alone—it had also asked citizens to cut down foreign travel, and Modi had since visited more than eight countries. Singh said the eco-friendly tag should be read as “symbolism”, an area where he said the BJP had built real expertise.

The government’s own machinery backed the framing well before Friday. At a press conference in Jind 8 July, Saini had already described the rally as a “new chapter of development” for the state and said it would be run entirely on the reduce-petrol-diesel message, with most attendees using electric or CNG transport. Present with him were state BJP chief Archana Gupta, several cabinet ministers, MLAs, and senior officials, who reviewed route planning, security, power supply, water and sanitation arrangements together.

The party carried the message down to the ground level too. At a workers’ meeting in Julana on Thursday, Haryana Social Welfare Board chairman, and Uchana MLA, Yogesh Bairagi on Thursday asked BJP workers to reach the Jind venue only in electric or CNG vehicles, telling them it would carry a message about clean energy to the public.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)

Also read: ‘Paani waali rail chala di’—How Haryana BJP is trying to ‘draw oxygen’ from a hydrogen train