Modi, Maya to give BJP, BSP star power

Bhubaneswar: From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to BJP president Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to actor-turned-politician Hema Malini, the BJP has lined up an array of

star

campaigners for the Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the state. Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati will do the star turn for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) while former Jharkhand chief ministers Shibu Soren and his son Hemant will be campaigining for Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). All three parties on Wednesday submitted their list of star

campaigners

to the chief electoral officer (CEO). While the BJP and BSP lists have as many as 40 leaders each, the JMM named 20 people as its star campaigners.

The BJP names include Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Raghubar Das, Smriti Irani, Sivraj Singh Chauhan, Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram while celebrities like Aparajita Mohanty, Mihir Das, Mahasweta Ray, Anu Chaudhury and Pinky Pradhan will also be seen campaigning. Newly inducted Baijayant Panda and Damodar Rout have been included in the list along with Suresh Pujari, Basanta Panda, Giridhar Gomango, K V Singh Deo, Biswabhushan Harichandan, Pratap Sarangi, Samir Mohanty and Golak Mohapatra among others.

Besides party chief Mayawati, BSP will field Satish Chandra Mishra, Akash Anand, Tankadhar Bag, former Congress MLA from Koraput and Krushna Chandra Sagaria among others as its star campaigners. Apart from Shibu and Hemant, the JMM has named Champai Soren, Stephen Marandi and Kalinga Jeshari Jena among the campaigners.