Saturday (October 5): The NCP today released a list of its 40 star campaigners for the upcoming Maharashtra Assembly election, with party chief Sharad Pawar being at the forefront.
Besides Pawar, Maharashtra NCP unit president Jayant Patil, senior leaders Praful Patel, Chhagan Bhujbal, Ajit Pawar and party MP Supriya Sule are named as the campaigners by the party.
NCP chief spokesperson Nawab Malik, party general secretary Jitendra Awhad, Leader of Opposition in the State Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde, party’s state youth wing head Mehboob Shaikh and women wing president Rupali Chakankar are also named among the star campaigners.
While in the Congress camp, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh are among the 40 “star” campaigners for the October 21 assembly elections, the first major political contest after the Lok Sabha outing held earlier this year.
Among other top leaders of the party who are expected to hit the hustings are former party president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party general secretary in Uttar Pradesh.
Listing Sonia Gandhi, who had kept herself aloof from campaigning during the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, as a star campaigner underlines the importance the Congress, which has lost state after states, is assigning to the Maharashtra elections.
Other prominent campaigners are former Maharashtra chief ministers Sushilkumar Shinde, Prithviraj Chavan and Ashok Chavan.
Chief Ministers of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, namely Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath, and Bhupesh Baghel also figure in the list of star campaigners.
For the October 21 elections, the Congress has tied up with the NCP. The talks with smaller allies for a grand alliance have hit a roadblock over the allocation of seats.
As per the seat-sharing arrangement, the Congress and the NCP were expected to contest 125 seats each. However, the Congress has ended up filing more nominations till October 4, the last date of filing papers.
