After the Himalayan cave retreat in 2019, it will be offshore meditation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi this time.

Having criss-crossed the nation to campaign for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Modi will now travel to the country’s southernmost tip of Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu on May 30 and meditate at the Rock Memorial, a monument built in tribute to Swami Vivekananda, BJP leaders said on Tuesday.

The memorial is built on one of the two rocks about 500 metres off the mainland in the sea — the confluence of the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. Vivekananda had meditated here for three days and nights in 1892 and the memorial was built in 1970.

“Modiji will meditate from the evening of May 30 to June 1 at Dhyan Mandapam, the place where Vivekananda is believed to have had a divine vision of ‘Bharat Mata’,” a BJP leader said, adding that the place is also believed to be the site where Goddess Parvati meditated for Lord Shiva.

Political observers said the site in Tamil Nadu was chosen keeping in mind the party’s weak foothold in the southern states barring Karnataka. Modi’s visit to the memorial will send a signal of commitment towards national unity and affection for Tamil Nadu as he will be visiting the state even after the elections are over, the observers said.

In a similar effort five years ago, Modi had travelled to one of the holiest pilgrimage sites, Kedarnath in Uttarakhand, after campaigning for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections had culminated.

Dramatic visuals of Modi walking on a red carpet to the shrine and then meditating in a cave wrapped in a saffron robe were aired as the votes in the last round of the elections were being cast.

This led to an outcry from the Opposition camp, which alleged a violation of the model code of conduct that prohibits campaigning 48 hours before the votes are cast.

Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien had complained to the poll panel underlining that the wide publicity of the visit was “with an ulterior motive to influence voters directly and/ or indirectly”. CPM’s Sitaram Yechury had said that election rules prohibit the use of religion to garner votes. The poll panel had taken no action against Modi.

Similar visuals of Modi meditating at the offshore memorial in Kanyakumari are expected to be widely publicised by the media on June 1 when the votes for the last round of the seven-phase elections would be cast.