Bangaluru, April 21: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday released a list of 40 star campaigners for the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections. The list includes Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, BS Yeddyurappa, Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, Piyush Goyal as star campaigners for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly polls.

Apart from this, Yogi Adityanath, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Devendra Fadnavis, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ananth Kumar, Smriti Irani, Anant Kumar Hegde, SM Krishna, Prahlad Joshi, Jagadish Shettar, Manoj Tiwari, Hema Malini are also named as star campaigners in the list.

Karnataka will go to polls on May 12. The counting of votes will take place on May 15. The term of the current 224-member legislative Assembly ends on May 28. Indian National Congress (INC) is in majority with 122 seats, while BJP has only 40 seats, whereas Janta dal (Secular) also has 40 seats. Congress has projected Siddaramaiah as its Chief Minister Candidate, while BJP opted for BS Yeddyurappa

The BJP is trying its best to win these polls to make inroads into the politics of South India. This victory for BJP will provide a major boost for 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The granting of "religious minority" status to the dominant Lingayats and Veerashaiva Lingayats has become a major election issue.

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 21, 2018 10:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).