With the Jharkhand elections coming close, the Congress is gearing up to give a tough fight to the ruling BJP-AJSU coalition in the state.

Congress has issued a list of 40 star campaigners in the state including Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.

However, one name which is missing from the list was of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

After the election results in Haryana and Maharashtra showed good numbers in the Assembly for the Congress, the party was accused of lackadaisical attitude in both the states. It was said that if Congress has had pushed a bit more during the election campaigns, the results would have been different.

In Maharashtra, standing at the fourth place in the elections, the Congress is holding the key for the government formation as it fought in coalition with NCP and the decision of latter’s support to Shiv Sena completely depends upon the former.

Similarly in Haryana as well, the speculations of Congress forming the government with JJP was on high when the counting was on. However, things took another turn when the JJP with its 10 seats extended support to BJP, and got the seat of deputy chief minister in the state.

Congress’ morale is boost-up with its performance in these two states. The Lok Sabha polls was nearly like a nightmare for the party which assumed to give a tough fight to BJP but ended up getting a worse defeat than the one it got in 2014 general elections.

In order to leave no stone unturned, the Congress has started its preparation for the Jharkhand elections, to be held on November 30 in five phases, in advance.

However, in Haryana, Rahul Gandhi campaigned twice and in Maharashtra he addressed five rallies. But Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra didn’t held any rally in any of these two states.

The other key names in the list of the 40 star campaigners were Ghulam Nabi Azad, RPN Singh, Jitin Prasada, and Tariq Anwar. Other prominent campaigners are Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.

The party has also called a meeting of its leaders on Saturday to prepare for the elections. It has also released two lists of candidates.

Congress is contesting the elections in the state in alliance with Hemant Soren-led Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Lalu Yadav’s RJD. The state is set to go on polls on November 30 in five phases and the result will be declared on December 23.