New Delhi, October 02: Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Bal Thackarey are virtually the non-playing captains of the BJP-Shiv Sena combine for the October 13 Assembly elections in Maharashtra.
Even though they have not stirred out for canvassing support, the former Prime Minister and the Shiv Sena supremo have been named the top campaigners by the combine.
The posters of Vajpayee and Thackeray will now be used across the state in the campaigning as also their names in the cassettes and CDs as they will not be personally present.
In the list of the 40 star campaigners submitted by BJP and the Shiv Sena to the Election Commission, the two patriarch-like figures are on top of the heap.
Vajpayee is in retirement mode owing to his ill health and the ailing Sena supremo Thackarey has virtually left the rough and tumble to his son and working president Uddhav.
Shiv Sena’s Dasara rally, which was addressed by senior Thackarey every year for nearly four decades, was not held this year as the leader said he would address a victory rally of the combine after the results are out on October 22.
Others among the BJP’s star campaigners are L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj along with former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, whose ‘rancid pickle’ remark against Advani had recently created a flutter.
Shatrughan Sinha, who has created a stir by praising Rahul Gandhi, is also among the 40 star campaigners.
BJP vice-president Gopinath Munde and spokesperson Prakash Javadekar are among the Marathi leaders from the central leadership who figure in the list of star campaigners.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who failed to garner votes for the party during the Lok Sabha elections in the state of which he was made in-charge, leads several other party chief ministers in the campaigners’ list.
Other chief ministers are B S Yeddyurappa (Karnataka), Prem Kumar Dhumal (Himachal Pradesh), Ramesh Pokhriyal (Uttarakhand), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi.
Hema Malini, whose Rajya Sabha term is over, and TV actor-cum-politician Smriti Irani, along with former cricketer and MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, will also canvass for BJP.
Party chief whip in Rajya Sabha Maya Singh also figures in the list of 40 names submitted to the Election Commission.
The Shiv Sena star campaigners include Uddav Thackeray, Sena’s working president and former Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, party’s leader in the Lok Sabha Anant Geethe and senior leaders Liladhar Dake, Madhukar Sarpotdar, Subhash Desai, Sanjay Raut and Leader of the Opposition Ramdas Kadam.
Prakash Mahajan, brother of late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan, is also among the campaigners of Shiv Sena as also Shweta Parulkar, who was with Raj Thackeray’s party till recently.
—Agencies