Bhopal: Chief minister Mohan Yadav, his predecessor Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia are among the 40 star campaigners declared by BJP on Tuesday night for the April-May Lok Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh. Significantly, BJP veteran and former Union minister Uma Bharti who is currently on the spiritual tour in Himalayas has failed to make it to the list of star campaigners of BJP in MP.
Ms Bharti has stayed away from LS polls in 2019 and 2024 to dedicate her for rejuvenation of Ganga. Mr Chouhan and Mr Scindia have been declared candidates for Vidisha and Guna seats respectively by BJP in the polls. The star campaigners of the party also included Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh, Union minister Smriti Irani, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and BJP national president J P Nadda.
Madhya Pradesh unit president of the party Vishnu Dutt Sharma who is seeking re-election from Khajuraho in the ensuing LS polls has also made it to the list of star campaigners of the
party. Besides, Mr Yadav, his counterparts Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Bhajalal Sharma (Rajasthan), Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat), Himanta Biswa Sharma (Assam) and Vishnu Deo Sai (Chhattisgarh) are also scheduled to be deployed in MP as star campaigners of the party in the polls.
Interestingly, former Union minister Suresh Pachouri who has recently joined BJP around three weeks ago after snapping his nearly five decades long ties with Congress has been included in the list of star campaigners by the party. State minister and senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya and former minister Narottam Mishra have also been made the star campaigners by the party.
Madhya Pradesh is going to LS polls in four phases on April 19, April 26, May seven and May 13. Six LS constituencies, Sidhi, Shahdol (ST), Jabalpur, Mandla (ST), Balaghat and Chhindwara, are going to polls in the first phase polling on April 19 in Madhya Pradesh. BJP had won 28 out of 29 LS seats in MP in the last elections.