Delhi polls: Most Congress star campaigners not available

NEW DELHI: Congress has a new crisis in the house: that of star campaigners. Only a few of party's 40 star campaigners, including party supremo Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are available. Sonia and Rahul are said to have done their part of the job. The Prime Minister, party sources said, will address one rally in the next six days.

"The schedule for the five top leaders, including Sonia and Rahul, is not decided by us. We only accept requests for the rest of the leaders," said Dr Rakesh Sachdeva, in-charge of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee's control room.

He said they receive 15-30 requests for star campaigners every day. CM Sheila Dikshit, he added, is also on the list of star campaigners but she decides her own route.

"The current favourites include actor-turned politician Raj Babbar (who will hold two road shows and eight rallies), Harish Rawat (who will hold rallies in Patparganj, Najafgarh and R K Puram among others), Mahabal Mishra (who is campaigning in west Delhi), Bhupinder Singh Hooda (who will campaign mainly in Jat-dominated areas) and Jai Prakash Aggarwal among others," said Sachdeva.

Sources said senior ministers like Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Manish Tiwari, Kamal Nath and Sushilkumar Shinde will be attending only a few public meetings and rallies as they are busy with "other engagements". "Sibal will be campaigning mainly in Chandni Chowk area," said a Congress leader.

One of the candidates from west Delhi, who did not want to be identified, said they have been left to campaign on their own. "Unlike the BJP, which has unleashed a battery of senior leaders including Narendra Modi for campaigning, our party leaders are not forthcoming. Sonia and Rahul have held only two major rallies so far, in south and east Delhi respectively," said a Congress leader. The rally in south Delhi's Dakshinpuri was dubbed as a failure as many people left even as Rahul Gandhi spoke.

BJP sources said Ananth Kumar, Murlidhar Rao and Nirmala Sitharaman may campaign in localities which have sizable south Indian population. Kumar, who was in-charge of Madhya Pradesh campaigning, will now focus on Delhi.