India, Jan. 31 -- First, a Padma Shri award on Republic Day eve, and now a visit by the Prime Minister on February 1 - Dera Sachkhand at Ballan in Jalandhar is getting top-tier attention in a caste-coded politico-religious move with barely a year left for the assembly election in Punjab.

PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the headquarters of the sect to mark the 649th birth anniversary of 15th-century Bhakti saint Guru Ravidas, in a high-stakes outreach in the state's Dalit heartland.

Just a day before the visit, schools in Jalandhar received threat emails that turned out to be hoax.

Security was heightened anyhow for the PM's visit that comes as Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - at present just a junior ex-partner of the Shiro...