Patna, Oct 16 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Thursday, released a list of 40 star campaigners for the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, signalling its intent to go all out in the high-stakes political contest, party sources said.

The list includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and several top Union and state BJP leaders, who will campaign across the poll-bound state in support of NDA candidates.

The Bihar Assembly elections will be held in two phases — on November 6 and November 11.

The voting for the state polls will take place for 121 seats in the first phase and 122 seats in the second phase.

The results will be declared on November 14.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads the list of BJP’s star campaigners, followed by BJP National President J.P. Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta are also included in the star campaigners list for the Bihar polls.

Bihar Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, Bihar BJP President Dilip Jaiswal, Union Minister Giriraj Singh, and former Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ashwini Kumar Choubey have made it to the BJP star campaigners’ list.

Other BJP names include Nityanand Rai, Radha Mohan Singh, Renu Devi, Prem Kumar, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Sanjay Jaiswal, Nand Kishore Yadav, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, and Vinod Tawde.

Popular Bhojpuri and Hindi film stars Pawan Singh, Manoj Tiwari, Ravi Kishan and Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ have also been named among the BJP’s star campaigners, adding a touch of celebrity appeal to the party’s campaign strategy.

While the NDA has completed the seat-sharing distribution and announced its candidates, the Grand Alliance (RJD-Congress-Left) is still struggling to resolve internal seat-sharing disputes.

With the BJP’s star campaigner list now made public, political activity across Bihar has reached its peak as all political parties gear up for a high-voltage electoral battle.

–IANS

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