Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge with party leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi.
Credit: PTI File Photo
New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, former party chiefs Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra are among the star campaigners named by the party for the Jammu and Kashmir assembly polls.
Congress general secretaries Jairam Ramesh, K C Venugopal, Sachin Pilot, Ghulam Ahmad Mir as well as Himachal Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and his deputy Mukesh Agnihotri are also on the list the Congress has submitted to the Election Commission for the second phase of the three-phase polls.
Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Tariq Hamid Karra, former J&K Congress chief Vikar Rasool Wani, senior leaders Salman Khurshid, Ajay Maken, Syed Naseer Hussain, Rajani Patil, Rajiv Shukla and Manish Tewari are also part of the 40 leaders on the Congress list.
Kickstarting the party's election campaign in Jammu and Kashmir, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said restoring J&K's statehood will be the first decision of the INDIA bloc when it comes to power at the Centre if the Modi government fails to do so after the assembly polls.
Addressing rallies in the Dooru and Banihal assembly segments, Gandhi alleged that the lieutenant governor appointed by the Centre in Jammu and Kashmir was acting like a "21st-century king" and all benefits were being given to people from "outside" the UT.
The Congress' media and publicity department head Pawan Khera, social media department head Supriya Shrinate, Amethi MP Kishorilal Sharma, NSUI in-charge Kanhaiya Kumar and Indian Youth Congress chief Srinivas BV also figure on the list of star campaigners for the second phase of the polls.
The 90-member Jammu and Kashmir assembly will go to polls in three phases on September 18, September 25 and October 1, and the counting of votes will be taken up on October 8.