NEW DELHI: The BJP has prepared a list of 20 star campaigners for the upcoming West Bengal bypolls. It includes Union cabinet ministers Smriti Irani and Hardeep Singh Puri besides MP Babul Supriyo who had announced quitting the party recently.
The star campaigners would also do canvassing for BJP candidate Priyanka Tiberwal who has been fielded against state chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee from Bhabanipore.
The bypolls would be held on September 30 and the counting of votes would be undertaken on October 3.
The star campaigners include five Union ministers in the Narendra Modi government - cabinet ministers Smriti Irani and Hardeep Singh Puri and three ministers of state Subhas Sarkar, John Barla and Shantanu Thakur.
Former Union ministers Babul Supriyo and Debasree Choudhary are also included in the list of star campaigners. Supriyo was dropped from Modi’s council of ministers in the latest reshuffle.
Peeved over it, he had announced to resign from his Lok Sabha seat of Asansol. However, he was later mollified and he agreed to not resign.
Leader of opposition in the West Bengal assembly Suvendu Adhikari is also one of the star campaigners. The bypoll in Bhabanipore has been necessitated because Adhikari, a former confidante of Mamata Banerjee, defeated her in Nandigram in the assembly election held in March and April this year.
The other star campaigners are BJP state president Dilip Ghosh, state organisation general secretary Amitava Chakroborty, BJP’s former national secretary Rahul Sinha, director of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation (SPMRF) Anirban Ganguli, state BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattachariya and party’s state Mahila Morcha president Agnimitra Paul, state unit general secretary Locket Chatterjee.
Rajya Sabha MPs Roopa Ganguli and Swapan Dasgupta and Lok Sabha MP from North East Delhi Manoj Tiwari are also in the list.
Former Union minister Dinesh Trivedi, who had switched from TMC to BJP before the assembly election is also a star campaigner and so is Bihar minister and BJP’s national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain.
