120 star campaigners for Bijepur by-poll in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: With the political climate is heating up for Bijepur Assembly by-poll in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) as well as Congress and BJP will intensify their campaigning with as many as 120 star campaigners to win the election.

The three major political parties have released the lists of star campaigners (40 each), who will appeal to the voters for thumping win in the bye-election scheduled on October 21.

While the ruling BJD has announced 40 names as its star campaigners for the upcoming poll, opposition BJP and Congress also released their lists with equal strength.

BJD Supremo Naveen Patnaik will be campaigning for the party candidate Rita Sahu to retain the Assembly seat. Other senior leaders including Ananga Udaya Singhdeo, Prasanna Acharya, Prafulla Mallick, Naba Kishore Das, Pranab Prakash Das, Tukuni Sahu, Dibya Shankar Mishra, Raseswari Panigrahi, Pushpendra Singhdeo, Kalikesh Narayan Singhdeo and Snehangini Chhuria have also been named in the list.

Meanwhile, Congress released its 40-member star campaigners list with the names including AICC President Sonia Gandhi, former party head Rahul Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi and party’s state in-charge Jitendra Singh for party’s MLA nominee Dilip Panda to recapture the constituency.

For the BJP candidate Sanat Gadtia, the leaders including union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Smriti Irani and Pratap Sarangi, Jual Oram, Baijayanta Panda, Suresh Pujari, Sambit Patra, Manoj Tiwari, Basanta Panda, KV Singhdeo, Pradip Purohit and Radharani Panda will hit the campaign trail in Bijepur to woo voters.