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Chandigarh: After Padma Shri award to Dera Sachkhand Ballan head Sant Nirjan Das, in a move laden with political symbolism ahead of the Punjab Assembly elections due next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar on Sunday, February 1, marking a rare outreach to one of the most revered religious centres of the Ravidassia community in the state.

Confirming the visit, Union Minister of State Ravneet Singh Bittu said the Prime Minister would arrive at the Ballan Dera at around 4 pm, after attending proceedings of the Budget Session of Parliament earlier in the day.

The visit coincides with the 649th birth anniversary of Guru Ravidas and is being seen as a carefully calibrated political gesture. For the past few years, the Prime Minister has marked Guru Ravidas Jayanti by visiting Seer Govardhanpur in Varanasi—Guru Ravidas’s birthplace, which also falls within Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency. This year’s decision to visit Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Punjab, and that too on the day of Jayanti itself, is being viewed as a significant shift in outreach.

Political analysts point out that the Ravidassia community—predominantly Dalit, with followers across Sikhism and Hinduism—forms a crucial electoral bloc in Punjab, where Dalits account for nearly 34 per cent of the population. With the electoral landscape still fluid, the BJP appears keen to consolidate support among this sizeable and politically influential section.

Adding to the political messaging, Sant Niranjan Dass, the head of Dera Sachkhand Ballan, was conferred the Padma Shri at this year’s Republic Day . The honour followed a meeting between the Dera chief and Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi around two months ago, during which several senior BJP leaders, including former CPS Avinash Chander, BJP state general secretary Tarun Chugh, and former Union Minister of State Vijay Sampla, were present.

Sant Niranjan Dass oversees religious establishments associated with Guru Ravidas both in Varanasi and at Ballan. Every year, on the eve of Guru Ravidas Jayanti, he leads a special train carrying nearly 2,000 devotees to Varanasi—a tradition that will continue this year as well, with the train scheduled to be flagged off on January 29. However, Dera sources indicate that Sant Niranjan Dass may return by air from Varanasi to Ballan to be present for the Prime Minister’s visit.

The announcement of Modi’s visit has already injected fresh enthusiasm into the Punjab BJP unit. Party leaders say expectations are high that the Prime Minister could make a major announcement during the visit. A former BJP MP, speaking to The Tribune on condition of anonymity, said there was speculation that the Adampur airport could be renamed after Guru Ravidas. The visit also assumes added significance as it precedes Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s scheduled Punjab visit on February 22.

Guru Ravidas followers have long been demanding elaborate preparations for the 650th birth anniversary of the saint, which will be observed next year. “With this visit, the Prime Minister will effectively kickstart year-long celebrations marking the 650th Guru Ravidas Jayanti,” said Avinash Chander.

Meanwhile, rival parties are also attempting to woo the community. The Aam Aadmi Party has announced plans for a state-level Jayanti function and has proposed acquiring 12 acres of land near the Dera to establish a Guru Ravidas Research Centre—an idea first announced during the tenure of former Congress Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi. Both the Congress and AAP governments had earlier announced grants of ₹25 crore each for Dera-related projects, accompanied by photo-ops with the Dera chief, but Dera functionaries claim that little has materialised on the ground so far.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is also expected to visit Khuralgarh in Hoshiarpur district on February 6, where the 151-foot-tall Minar-e-Begampura—dedicated to Guru Ravidas’s vision of an egalitarian society—is set to be unveiled. Local residents have renewed demands for recarpeting and widening the Khuralgarh road into a four-lane highway ahead of the 650th Parkash Purb celebrations next year. With political parties intensifying outreach to Dalit religious institutions, the run-up to the Punjab Assembly elections is clearly witnessing an early and competitive mobilisation around faith, symbolism, and long-pending development promises.