17, minus Navjot Sidhu, on Congress wish list

CHANDIGARH: Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Tejashwi Yadav, Shatrughan Sinha, Urmila Matondkar, Captain Amarinder Singh, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Ashok Gehlot are among

17

star campaigners the local Congress wants for canvassing during the

Lok Sabha elections

.


The name of Punjab cabinet minister and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu is not on the list for now. Sources in the Congress said the party's central leadership had asked the Chandigarh unit to name its choices based on assessing the political atmosphere of the city.

The finalised names have been sent to the party's central leadership in New Delhi to secure their rally dates. Since election to the Chandigarh parliamentary seat is scheduled in the last phase, on May 19, slotting public meetings and rallies in the city will be a crucial decision. The local party unit is keen to know the dates early to be able to plan things.

Since Chandigarh is a cosmopolitan city with people from a mix of states and a high concentration of employees from the neighbourhood region, the campaigners of their regions can play a vital role in local canvassing. The Chandigarh Congress has kept all these factors in the mind while deciding the names of the star campaigners whom it wants to speak in the city.

A senior Congress leader of the city said: "Since the party's central leadership has already released the list of 40 star campaigners for public meetings and rallies across the country, we have picked 20 names from that basket for Chandigarh and requested for suitable dates to organise their functions. Besides big rallies, the party has also been planning smaller gathering in different places of the city. We have secured permissions from the UT election department in time, so that we can cover every voter and share our agenda with the general public."

The election department of the Chandigarh administration has opened a single window in the deputy commissioner's office in Sector 17 as one-stop shop to issue all permissions and approvals for meetings, rallies, and other election-related things that are organised..