EC lays down rules on sharing star campaigners
IF ONE PARTY’S STAR CAMPAIGNER CAMPAIGNS FOR ALLY’S CANDIDATE, THEN THE EXPENSE WILL BE THAT CANDIDATE’S
MUMBAI: The state election commission has sent a letter to all political parties saying that their star campaigners can only be from their party and the leaders of other parties cannot feature on that list.
A senior officer working for the office of the state chief electoral officer said that they had received complaints regarding the lists of one political party featuring the names of star campaigners of their allies too and hence wanted to send a cautionary note to the parties. Hence a letter was released on Monday to all political parties. Explaining the implications of this letter, the officer said: “If a BJP leader mentioned as a star campaigner came for the election campaign of a Shiv Sena candidate, t he expense will be treated as that candidate’s expense. Normally, a star campaigner’s expense is treated as party expense.”
The BJP list of star campaigners has leaders such as Eknath Shinde, chief minister, who heads the Shiv Sena, Ajit Pawar, deputy chief minister, of NCP and Ramdas Athavale, union minister, of RPI in their list of star campaigners. Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena led by Eknath Shinde has Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, home minister, Devendra
Fadnavis, deputy chief minister, Ajit Pawar, deputy chief minister, and NCP leader Praful Patel as star campaigners.
The Shiv Sena UBT and NCP have chosen their leaders as star campaigners. The Congress has struck to its own leaders.
A Shiv Sena leader said, “Apart from Eknath Shinde and some senior people, we don’t have many leaders. Normally, any party chooses 40 people as their star campaigners. We didn’t have many and hence included names of BJP leaders.’’
Reacting to the letter, Shiv Sena spokesperson Sheetal Mhatre, however, said that the Sena list did not have the names of other party leaders as star campaigners. BJP spokesperson Keshav Upadhye said, “The party will take an appropriate call on this.’’