Sonia, Manmohan Cong campaigners

The Congress party will have 40 of its senior leaders including the party’s former chief Sonia Gandhi, senior leader and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and current President Rahul Gandhi, to campaign ahead of the May 12 Karnataka Assembly polls.

In a letter to the Election Commission (EC) written by senior party leader Motilal Vora on Tuesday, 40 leaders have been chosen as the “star campaigners” for the Congress.

The party will also fly in its leaders like Lok Sabha lawmaker from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, Rajasthan unit Congress chief Sachin Pilot, the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, the party’s Lok Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, among others, said the list. IANS

BENGALURU:

Most people south of the Vindhyas are touchy about what they see as the imposition of Hindi and proud of their own mother tongues. So when P Muralidhar Rao, the national general secretary of BJP who is in charge of the state tweeted in Hindi to chief minister Siddaramiah, taunting him about contesting a second seat, the savvy social media team of the CM was quick to retort with a “please tweet in Kannada or English. We don’t understand Hindi sir.”

This touched a chord even among Kannadigas who may not necessarily have been the CM’s sympathisers.

Rao was quick to correct himself and tweeted in Kannada saying “irrespective of wherever you contest from, we will make Karnataka free of Congress,” but the damage was done.

MH Ambareesh was a successful movie star in the Kannada film industry.

Popularly known as ‘Rebel Star’ by his fans, he hasn’t forgotten his ways despite being in politics for more than two decades.

Ambareesh, who has held senior positions including being the junior minister for Information and Broadcasting (I&B) in the Manmohan Singh government at the Centre, was till recently the housing minister in the Siddaramiah-led cabinet in Karnataka.

But the chief minister dropped him recently, and Ambareesh doesn’t seem to have forgotten the slight.

So, even as the Congress declared him as its candidate from the Mandya legislative seat, where he is the sitting MLA, Ambareesh refused to accept the party’s B form.

Despite numerous visits and pleadings from senior Congress ministers and leaders, he stuck to his guns and finally decided not to contest the polls on May 12.