With poll-bugle already sounded for Bijepur Assembly constituency by-election, the three major political parties, the BJD, the Congress and the BJP, released lists of 40 star campaigners each on Thursday.
The star campaigners will appeal to the voters to vote for their respective candidates in the bye-election scheduled to be held on October 21.
As per norms, all the parties would submit their star campaigner lists to before the Returning Officer.
The BJD list figures Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on the top. Other senior leaders who are in the list include Ananga Udaya Singh Deo, Prasanna Acharya, Prafulla Mallick, Naba Kishore Das, Pranab Prakash Das, Tukuni Sahu, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Raseswari Panigrahi, Pushpendra Singh Deo, Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and Snehangini Chhuria. They will all campaign for party candidate Rita Sahu.
In the Congress list, AICC president Sonia Gandhi, former party head Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi and party’s Odisha in-charge Jitendra Singh have been named, among others. They will campaign for party candidate Dilip kumar Panda.
There are three Union Ministers in the BJP Star campaigners’ list. They are Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan and Pratap Sarangi. Senior leaders such as Suresh Pujari, Jual Oram, Manoj Tiwari, Baijayant Panda, Sambi Patra, Basant Panda, KV Singh Deo, Pradip Purohit and Radharani Panda also figure the list. They will hit the campaign trail in Bijepur to woo voters for Sanat Gadtia.
Naveen Patnaik is likely to campaign in Bijepur for two days on October 17 and 18.