The election campaign is gaining momentum in Himachal Pradesh with about two weeks to go for the polls, and the major political parties are reaching out to the public with their star campaigners.
The two major political parties, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress are contesting all the four Lok Sabha seats, whereas, the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPM) is contesting from Mandi seat.
The election is scheduled to be held on 19 May.
The star campaigners for the phase seven elections in Himachal include the top brass of the BJP, Congress and the CPM.
The BJP has listed 40 leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National Party Chief Amit Shah, Union Ministers and prominent state leaders.
Other than Modi and Shah, Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and Uma Bharti would campaign for the party.
BJP National General Secretary Ramlal, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditya Nath, Member of Parliament and actress Hema Malini are also amongst the star campaigners.
The state leaders include state BJP president Satpal Singh Satti, CM Jai Ram Thakur, ex-CMs Shanta Kumar and Prem Kumar Dhumal, MPs Anurag Thakur and Virendra Kashyap, Cabinet ministers Suresh Bhardwaj, Govind Singh Thakur, Virendra Kanwar, Vikram Singh Thakur, Vipin Singh Parmar, Ram Lal Markandeya, Mahendra Singh Thakur, and Sarveen Chowdhary.
BJP Himachal in-charge Mangal Pandey and election in-charge Teerath Singh Rawat and BJP state leaders including Randhir Sharma, Kirpal Parmar, Chandramohan Thakur, Ram Singh, Parveen Sharma, Ganesh Dutt, Indu Goswami, Vishal Chouhan and Maheshwar Singh also figure in the list of campaigners.
Congress also has a list of 40 star campaigners. It includes National president Rahul Gandhi, ex-All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Sonia Gandhi, ex-PM Manmohan Singh, Priyanka Gandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik, Sushmita Dev, Randeep Singh Surejwala, Ashok Gehlot, Kamal Nath, Amarinder Singh, Rajeev Shukla, Harish Rawat, Sachin Pilot, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AICC secretary Praveen Dawar and Film actor and ex-MP Raj Babbar.
Besides, Himachal Pradesh in-charge Rajni Patil, All India Congress Committee Secretary Gurkirat Singh Kotli, other state leaders including state Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore, ex-CM Virbhadra Singh, ex-Union minister Sukh Ram Sharma, ex-ministers Sudhir Sharma, Asha Kumari, Mukesh Agnihotri and GS Bali would be campaigning.
State Congress general secretary Rajneesh Kimta, Rajesh Dharmani, Janel Chandel, Harikrishan Himral, Dharmender, Rakesh Chauhan, Chakravarti Sharma, Udit Raj, Yash Pal Tanaik, Kailash Prasher and Kanwar Ajay Bahadur are also amongst other party leaders in the list.
Both the political parties are yet to finalise the schedule of their top brass national leaders who will be campaigning in Himachal.