New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which nominated party leader Priyanka Tibrewal Friday for the September 30 bypoll to Bhabanipur assembly seat against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has released a list of its 20 star campaigners for the election.
The list has mostly Bengal leaders of the party, and only four from outside. They include Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Smriti Irani, national spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain and former Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who participated in a high-volume campaign in the state during the assembly polls earlier this year, has not been named as a star campaigner.
The list has the name of BJP state president Dilip Ghosh on top. It also features MP and former Union minister Babul Supriyo, who recently announced to “leave politics”, and Suvendu Adhikari, who defeated Mamata Banerjee from Nandigram in the assembly elections.
Here is the full list of BJP’s 20 star campaigners:
- Dilip Ghosh, MP and West Bengal BJP president
- Suvendu Adhikari, MLA & leader of opposition
- Amitava Chakroborty, general secretary (organisation), West Bengal BJP
- Rahul Sinha, former BJP national secretary
- Swapan Dasgupta, Rajya Sabha MP
- Anirban Ganguli, SPMRF director
- Debasree Choudhary, MP
- Babul Supriyo, MP
- Subhas Sarkar, Union minister
- John Barla, Union minister
- Samik Bhattachariya, Bengal BJP chief spokesperson
- Roopa Ganguli, Rajya Sabha MP
- Agnimitra Paul, MLA & BJP MAhila Morcha chief
- Shantanu Thakur, Union minister
- Locket Chatterjee, Bengal MP
- Shahnawaz Hussain, BJP national spokesperson
- Smriti Irani, Union minister
- Dinesh Trivedi, former Union minister
- Manoj Tiwari, MP and former Delhi BJP chief
- Hardeep Singh Puri, Union minister
BJP national secretary and West Bengal in-charge Kailash Vijayvargiya’s name is missing from the list.
Earlier on Friday, the party declared the name of Priyanka Tibrewal, a lawyer by profession, as its candidate for the Bhabanipur from where Mamata Banerjee is seeking her election to the state’s Legislative Assembly.
Banerjee, who was sworn in as the CM for a third term in May this year despite losing to former aide-turned-BJP candidate Suvendu Adhikari, needs to become an MLA before November to keep her post, according to rules.
Lawyer Tibrewal is one of the petitioners in the cases of post-poll violence filed in the Calcutta High Court against the Trinamool Congress government.
The BJP also announced the names of Milan Ghosh and Sujit Das for Samserganj and Jangipur bypolls, respectively.
The bypoll results will be declared on October 3.