Star campaigners from Cong give Odisha the miss

Bhubaneswar: Given the situation of the Congress state unit in Odisha, it’s not only the candidates and party leaders, even its star campaigners seem to be staying away.
On March 25, the Congress had released a list of 40 star campaigners with party president Rahul Gandhi headlining the show.

The list included the likes of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Md Azharuddin, Kamal Nath, Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia for the first and second phase of elections in Odisha.

On Thursday, four Lok Sabha and 28 assembly seats go to polls in Odisha. But since the list of star campaigners was submitted to the state Election Commission, none have set foot on its soil barring Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and his cabinet minister T S Singhdeo, who addressed a public meeting in Kalahandi last week.

It must be mentioned here that Rahul had visited Odisha at least four times before March 25, but not since. Perhaps the infighting, frustration over ticket distribution and mass exodus could be held responsible for the Congress president staying away from Odisha.

In contrast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah campaigned at different places in Odisha thrice since their names were submitted along with others as the BJP’s star campaigners on March 25.

Congress state working president Pradeep Majhi said Rahul’s campaign programme got postponed due to some unavoidable reasons.

“Rahul is likely to visit Odisha next week,” Pradeep said.