Raipur: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, senior leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are among the opposition party’s 40 star campaigners for the Lok Sabha polls in Chhattisgarh.
The list of star campaigners was shared on Saturday by the state unit of the Congress.
Others on the list include the party’s state in charge Sachin Pilot, Rajani Patil and three chief ministers, namely Siddaramaiah (Karnataka), Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (Himachal Pradesh) and Revanth Reddy (Telangana).
Haryana leader Kumari Selja, actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar, Odisha leader Bhakta Charan Das, poet and Rajya Sabha MP Imran Pratapgarhi and former student leader Kanhaiya Kumar have also been named as star campaigners.
Among the leaders from Chhattisgarh who have been named as star campaigners are state party chief Deepak Baij, Leader of Opposition Dr Charan Das Mahant, former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, former deputy CM TS Singh Deo and six former state ministers.
Elections to the 11 Lok Sabha seats in the state will be held in three phases on April 19, April 26 and May 7 and votes will be counted on June 4.
The Naxal-hit Bastar (ST) will be the lone seat to witness polling in the first phase on April 19, while three other constituencies – Mahasamund, Rajnandgaon and Kanker (ST) will vote on April 26.
The remaining seven seats – Raipur, Durg, Bilaspur, Raigarh (ST), Korba, Janjgir-Champa (SC) and Surguja (ST) – will go to the polls in the last phase on May 7.
Both Congress and BJP have declared candidates for all 11 Lok Sabha seats.
The BJP won 10 out of Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2004, 2009 and 2014. However, in the 2019 polls, BJP won nine seats.
