BJP, Cong star campaigners skip campaign in MP

For BJP, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ram Lal, Arun Jaitley, Smriti Irani, Shatrughan Sinha, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, even Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, among the 39 star campaigners from the party, remained 'otherwise busy'.

Interestingly, the BJP sent names of 39 star campaigners for Vidisha constituency from where party's heavyweight Sushma Swaraj is contesting but none turned up during the campaign except for Sushma herself and state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Vidisha will go for poll on April 24. "Most star campaigners are contesting elections and hence they could not come," a party source said.

Vidisha and Betul both are beyond Malwa-Nimar belt. Of the 12 seats in Malwa-Nimar belt the Congress won six from this region in 2009. The Congress party workers were expecting Union Minister Kamal Nath to campaign after the polling was over in his own constituency Chhindwara in the first phase. But he has so far visited only Dewas that his loyalist Sajjan Singh Verma is learnt to have been struggling to defend the seat.

According to party sources, "Kamal Nath was expected in Betul on the last day of campaign. Sonia Gandhi also reported to have cut down her campaign schedule. She had to address a rally in Bhopal on April 13. Scindia also skipped his scheduled visits some areas in Malwa and Nimar. However, Rahul Gandhi has visited the region frequently."

Also, Rahul's confidante Meenakshi Natarajan is defending the Mandsaur seat against BJP's Sudhir Gupta and AAP's Paras Sakhlecha. Though Gupta is little known, Sakhlecha is a tough contender.