Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be one of the star campaigners of the Bharatiya Janta Party( BJP) for the MCD polls scheduled to be held on April 23. The party has prepared a list of star campaigners, including 13 Union ministers, and seven chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, senior party leaders, and Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari have sought these leaders to campaign in the run-up to the MCD polls.
"It is a tentative list of senior party leaders who will campaign in the municipal elections and expose the Aam Aadmi Party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal," said Delhi BJP vice president Ravindra Gupta.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya will also campaign for the BJP in the MCD polls, he added.
Names of Union ministers, including those of senior union ministers; Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsh Vardhan and Vijay Goel, also figure in BJP's list of star campaigners for the MCD polls.
Actress-turned-politician and the saffron party's MP from Mathura Hema Malini will also campaign in the election for the 272 wards of the three municipal corporations in the national capital, which is expected to witness a three-pronged contest among the BJP, AAP and Congress.
Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled Maharashtra, Assam, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh will also take part in the campaigning. Tiwari and another Bhojpuri filmstar, Ravi Kishan, also feature among the party's star campaigners.
Senior BJP leader from Bihar Sushil Modi too will campaign in a bid by the saffron party to woo the huge chunk of voters from that state living in the city.
Senior party leaders Kalraj Mishra, Smriti Irani, Radha Mohan Singh, Giriraj Singh, Sanjiv Balyan, Jitendra Singh, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Shahnawaj Hussain, Sambit Patra will also take part in the campaigning among others.
"The campaign will be lead by Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari while Bhojpuri actors, film stars and Phogat sisters will also do campaigning," said Delhi BJP official.
Delhi BJP is busy finalizing its list of candidates for the 272 municipal wards. According to state BJP leaders, the list will be declared on Friday ( March 31). BJP has decided to field fresh faces and replace all its 153 sitting councilors as the ruling party wants to beat the anti-incumbency factor. BJP has been ruling the three municipal corporations for the last 10 years and faces a formidable challenge from AAP that is not leaving any stone unturned to wrest control of the municipal bodies.
Delhiites will vote for civic elections on April 23 while the result will e declared on April 26.