Union Ministers, CMs, and actors to hit the campaign trail
The BJP is not taking the MCD elections lightly. Its blitzkrieg will witness nearly a dozen Union Ministers, four Chief Ministers, 11 MPs and a host of leaders drawn from States as far as Telangana hitting the campaign trail in the national Capital.
While the star campaigners will be led by BJP president JP Nadda, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had not campaigned in the 2017 MCD polls, will not canvass this time around too. The campaigners’ list will be issued soon after receiving approval from the top leadership, BJP leaders said.
Union Ministers on the MCD campaign trail will include Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani, Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, as per the list of star campaigners.
Apart from this, Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, Meenakshi Lekhi, Minister of State (Independent Charge) in the Ministry of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh, Minister of Rural Development, Giriraj Singh, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Anurag Thakur, Minister of State in the Ministry of Fisheries, Loganathan Murugan, and Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari will be campaigning.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Uttrakhand CM Pushkar Dhami, Himachal Pradesh CM, Jai Ram Thakur, and Deputy CM of UP Keshav Prasad Maurya will also campaign. BJP’s Telangana president K Annamalai Sur will also hit the campaign trail.
The party has also planned 250 meetings in the city to reach out to non-Hindi speaking people from the southern States, Odisha, West Bengal, and North East among others, a senior BJP leader said.
"They have a sizeable population across the city, including RK Puram, CR Park, Satya Niketan, and Munirka in South Delhi," another leader associated with the campaigning said. The campaign will begin around November 21-23, after a party meeting headed by Nadda and Shah, he said.
Several MPs including Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Gautam Gambhir, Hansraj Hans, Parvesh Singh, Ramesh Bidhuri, Radha Mohan Singh, Dushyant Kumar Gautam, Sushil Modi, and Sanjiv Baliyan will also campaign to try and bring the BJP back in the MCD for the fourth time in a row.
Other big names on the list include Bhojpuri actor and BJP MP Manoj Tiwari, Ravi Kishan, singer Dinesh Lal Yadav (Nirahua), and actor-politician Hema Malini.
State BJP president, Adesh Gupta, national vice-president Baijayant Panda, State co-in charge Alka Gurjar, Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, spokesperson Sambit Patra, general secretary Siddharthan, former MLA, Manjeet Sirsa, vice-chairman Gandhi Smriti Vijay Goel are among other campaigners.