Star-studded campaign week ahead for Meghalaya

A star-studded week of poll campaign awaits Meghalaya with heavyweights Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi set to address election rallies while film star Shatrughan Sinha and Jaya Prada are slated to campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party respectively.

The Prime Minister will address an election rally in Shillong on February 27, while All India Congress Committee president Sonia Gandhi will campaign at Jowai and Tura on February 23 and March 1, respectively, AICC Secretary Major Ved Prakash said.

The campaign by the stalwarts is important since the Congress has not been able to make much inroads in the Jaintia hills and West Garo hills districts, strongholds of the United Democratic Party and the NCP respectively in the last Assembly elections.

In a touch of glamour to the campaign, Samajwadi Party, which is contesting 15 seats, has roped in Jaya Prada and Jaya Bachchan to join the poll campaign while efforts were on to bring in Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai.

"The visits of Amitabh and Aishwarya is yet to be confirmed, but others and senior leaders Mulayam Singh Yadav and Amar Singh will join the campaign," an SP functionary said.

Not to be outdone, the BJP will also be bringing actor-politicians Shatrughan Sinha and Smriti Irani , besides senior leaders Rajnath Singh, M M Joshi, Venkaiah Naidu and Arjun Munda, to hit the campaign trail of the saffron party.

"The schedules of the leaders is yet to be fixed, but they have all confirmed," state BJP vice-president Basu Chakraborty said.

Nationalist Congress Party leaders Sharad Pawar, Praful Patil and Tariq Anwar are expected to give boost to the party's campaign.