With the battlelines drawn for the Assembly elections in Himachal Pradesh and withdrawal of nomination papers to end on Saturday, the hill state is ready for the high-voltage campaigning. National leaders of both the Congress and the BJP, the main political parties in the state, as well as Bollywood stars are ready to hit the election scene soon.
Both the Congress and the BJP have lined up a long list of star campaigners to woo voters in the hill state where Assembly polls are due on November 4.
The list of Congress party star campaigners include party president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Union minister Gulam Nabi Azad and Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit.
Apart from political parties, Bollywood star Raj Babbar and cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin are also included in the list of star campaigners of the Congress party.
On the other hand, the ruling BJP has also released a long list of its star campaigners, which includes Gujrat chief minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Nitin Gadkari and former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani. Actress Hema Malini and TV star Smirti Irani are also among the BJP’s star campaigners.
Interestingly, for the first time the Election Commission of India is going to account the travel expenditure of the star campaigners as its has asked the political parties to send the list of their star campaigners. According to the EC rules, the star campaigners can only talk about party and policies. They can not campaign for the candidate, else expenditure incurred by them will be counted as candidate’s expenditure. In case more then one candidate is present in the rally or public meeting of star campaigner, the expenditure will be distributed among them.