Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Jagat Prakash Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and former BJP Chief Nitin Gadkari among the star campaigners list which was released by the party for Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand, for the Lok Sabha polls.
In Madhya Pradesh, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti is missing from the BJP’s list of star campaigners. However, the party has picked Suresh Pachauri, who recently switched over from Congress, for the job. Uma Bharti, who had led the BJP to victory in the 2003 assembly polls, had also failed to make it to the BJP’s list of star campaigners during the 2023 state polls. Earlier this month, the senior BJP leader had said that she would not contest elections for the next two years and instead work for the rejuvenation of the Ganga river, but also made it clear that she won’t retire from politics.
Besides MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, his counterparts Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh) Bhajanlal Sharma (Rajasthan), Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat) Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam), Vishnu Deo Sai (Chhattisgarh) will promote BJP candidates as star campaigners in MP. Former Union minister Pachouri, who joined the BJP from Congress earlier this month, has been included in the list. BJP chief JP Nadda, party’s state unit president VD Sharma, Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Faggan Singh Kulaste, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Smriti Irani and Virendra Kumar Khatik are among the 40 key figures chosen to campaign for its candidates. Polling on 29 seats of Madhya Pradesh will be held in four phases - April 19, April 26, May 7 and May 13.
MP’s deputy CMs Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla and their peers Devendra Fadnavis (Maharashtra) and Keshav Prasad Maurya (Uttar Pradesh) are a part of the list, which also includes ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and MP cabinet ministers like Prahlad Patel, Kailash Vijayvargiya, Aidal Singh Kansana and Tulsi Silawat. Former state ministers Gopal Bhargava and Narottam Mishra, and Union ex-minister Satyanarayan Jatia have also been picked for the task. Of the 29 seats in the state, the BJP had won 28 in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, with the remaining seat - Chhindwara - going to Congress’ Nakul Nath. In the first phase on April 19, Sidhi, Shahdol (ST), Jabalpur, Mandla (ST), Balaghat and Chhindwara will go to the poll.
In the list of Bihar star campaigners list, BJP has also named its chief JP Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, and Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Giriraj Singh and Nityanand Rai, besides Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav.
Among the state leaders who found a place on the list are Deputy CMs Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, Renu Devi, Mangal Pandey, Prem Kumar, Neeraj Kumar Singh, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Sushil Kumar Modi.
For the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar, the BJP has come into alliance under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and will contest with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), former CM Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha, ex-Union minister Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha and Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) as its ally.
The BJP and JD(U) have declared candidates for 17 and 16 candidates for the seats they are respectively fighting. Manjhi’s party has announced his candidature from Gaya. Upendra Kushwaha is likely to enter the fray from Karakat.
In Uttarakhand, the star campaigners list includes the names of BJP president JP Nadda, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Minister Smriti Irani and Mathura MP Hema Malini. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, state BJP president Mahendra Bhatt and former chief ministers Trivendra Singh Rawat and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank are also among the party’s star campaigners.
Polling for the five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand is scheduled to be held in the first of the seven-phase election on April 19.
