Rupani, Nitin Patel in BJP’s list of star campaigners for Gujarat polls

NEW DELHI, (PTI): Former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani and former deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, who have not been fielded as candidates by the BJP in the assembly polls, are on the list of the party’s star campaigners who include Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders.

Union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, chief ministers Bhupendra Patel (Gujarat), Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam) and Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), and the party’s national president J P Nadda are among the 40 star campaigners for the polls.

The lists, submitted to the Election Commission, also includes many other Union ministers and state party leaders.

With the EC capping the expenditure by candidates during the campaign, rules allow the expenses incurred on the stump by these star campaigners to be borne by their party and not the local contestants.

The BJP had on Thursday released its first list of 160 candidates for the two-phase elections to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly.

The party has claimed that a number of senior leaders from the state, including Rupani and Patel, have opted out of the contest and had written to the central leadership to this effect.

Polling will be held in two phases in Gujarat on December 1 and 5 and the votes will be counted on December 8.