Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are among the 40 star campaigners the party announced on November 15, 2022 for the Gujarat assembly elections.
Mr. Gandhi, who has been leading the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra for the past 69 days, has not campaigned in the election-ready States of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.
Other key star campaigners include Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Keral Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala, former Chief Ministers Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Ashok Chavan.
Former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, AICC in-charge for party affairs in Gujarat Raghu Sharma and Gujarat leader Shatisinh Gohil, Jagdish Thakor, Sukhram Rathva, Bharatsinh Solanki, Arjun Mothvadia and Jignesh Mevani will also campaign for the party as star campaigners.
Under attack for a low-key campaign in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home State, the Congress claimed that their silent campaign is going on.
“Our campaign in Gujarat is a robust one, is a strong one, it is continuing,” said party spokesperson Anshul Avijit.
“The Gujarat Model of Development is an extreme failure, it is a corrupted model, distorted and contorted model of development. The model of development is that you benefit a few industrialists and leave behind the rest and that leads to a lot of inequity, lot of social and economic disparity,” he added.
Mr. Avijit said the recent Morbi tragedy highlighted that story of cronyism where a watch-maker is given the contract to maintain a large-scale suspension bridge. “This happened in the ventilator scam as well during the COVID….The High Court continuously indicted the Government of Gujarat for their mismanagement of Covid,” he said.
