PM, Shah, union ministers in BJP's list of campaigners for

A galaxy of BJP leaders led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah will hit the campaign trail in Telangana where the party is contesting the April 11 Lok Sabha elections on its own.

Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitely, Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman, J P Nadda, Suresh Prabhu are among the leaders who will canvass votes for the candidates of BJP, which is fighting all 17 Lok Sabha seats in the southern state.

The names of these leaders figure in the list of campaigners submitted by the BJP to the Election Commission, party sources said Tuesday.

The list also includes among others Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adiyanath, other Union Ministers Uma Bharati, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Smriti Irani, BJP MP and renowned actress Hema Malini, party leaders Ram Madhav and Syed Shahnawaz Hussain.

From Telangana, party MP and former union minister Bandaru Dattatreya, state BJP president K Laxman and others are among the campaigners, the sources added.

After the humiliating defeat in the assembly polls in December when it managed to win only one of the 119 seats, the BJP is hoping to put up a better performance in Parliament elections heavily banking on the popularity of Modi.

BJP had contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls in alliance with the TDP and won the Secunderabad seat with Dattatreya emerging the victor. He has not been given ticket this time.