Other than PM and Yogi, party president Amit Shah is also in ‘high demand’.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are in maximum demand from the state units of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to campaign for their candidates in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
The party has released the list of star campaigners for the first and second phases for different states. These two phases account for 188 seats. According to BJP sources, Modi and Yogi are the most sought after leaders from within the list, though there are many other star campaigners.
The party, this is to be noted, has not included veterans like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Kalraj Mishra in the list of star campaigners for different states.
Other than Modi and Yogi, party president Amit Shah is also in “high demand”. He is trying his best to reach out to as many constituencies as possible. Besides, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Arun Jaitley, Uma Bharti, Smriti Irani, and Hema Malini are also in demand from the states.
Interestingly, the BJP has named actor Vivek Oberoi as one of its star campaigners in Gujarat. Oberoi has acted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the biopic PM Narendra Modi.
In the recently concluded Assembly elections in five states last year, Yogi Adityanath campaigned vigorously for the party. He was also a star campaigner during the Karnataka Assembly elections last year.
Modi started his campaign on 28 March and since then, he has already addressed more than a dozen rallies across the country. A senior party leader said that after the first and second phases of voting gets over, those leaders who were busy in their home constituencies, will also join the nationwide campaigning.
He said Modi and Shah will campaign in about two-thirds of the constituencies where the party is contesting, all over the country.
The party has so far released the names of about 350 candidates, while about 80 more will be declared later. The rest of the seats are being given to alliance partners, while in some of the constituencies, the party is likely to support Independent candidates.