Sonia Gandhi, Naveen Patnaik, JP Nadda To Campaign In Bijepur Bypoll

Bhubaneswar: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJD president Naveen Patnaik, BJP working president JP Nadda and Union Ministers Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan will campaign for their party candidates in the Bijepur Assembly by-election.

The BJD, Congress and BJP submitted names of 40-star campaigners of their parties at the office of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Odisha on Thursday.

Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will campaign for party candidate Dilip Kumar Panda in the October 21 by-election.

Chief Minister and BJD president Naveen Patnaik, senior BJD leaders AU Singhdeo, Prasanna Acharya, Prafulla Mallick, Naba Kishore Das are the star BJD campaigners who will campaign for party candidate Rita Sahu.

BJP working president JP Nadda, general secretary Arun Singh and Union ministers Smriti Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan, Pratap Sarangi will campaign for the saffron party candidate Sanat Gartia.

The Bijepur Assembly by-election was necessitated as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik who had won from two seats - Bijepur and Hinjili - in the Assembly election retained Hinjili and vacated the Bijepur seat.