Delhi Assembly elections: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday released a list of 40 star campaigners including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj among 40 star campaigners for the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections. The BJP aims to break its 26-year drought of power in Delhi, while the Congress is looking to regain a foothold after being wiped out in the past two elections. With freebies, law and order, education and governance dominating campaign agendas, the capital is bracing for an intense electoral showdown with results on February 8.
Among others are BJP president JP Nadda, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit, Roads and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, union ministers like Piyush Goyal, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Manohar Lal Khattar. In order to counter the Poorvanchal narrative, the BJP has listed Ravi Kishan, Nirahua, Manoj Tiwari, Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Hema Malini.
On the BJP front, heavyweight Parvesh Verma, a former MP and son of former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, filed his papers on Wednesday accompanied by prominent party leaders, including Baijayant Jay Panda and MP Sudhanshu Trivedi. Ramesh Bidhuri, who is contesting from Kalkaji against Delhi Chief Minister Atishi and Congress' Alka Lamba, also filed his nomination papers on Wednesday. Bidhuri was accompanied by Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri and Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva. Former Delhi Transport Minister Gahlot was accompanied by South Delhi MP Ramvir Singh Bidhuri.