Hyderabad: Star campaigners of the TRS for the ensuing Assembly elections, will not be from the world of glitz and glamour this time. While the Congress, BJP and the TD are banking on Tollywood actors to campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections, the TRS has decided to skip the glamour quotient and opt for the charisma of its high-profile leaders instead.
In the last elections, the TRS had actors like Vijayashanti and Babu Mohan supporting them, but Ms Vijayashanti has moved to the Congress since then and Babu Mohan joined the BJP recently after he was denied a TRS ticket from Andhole.
Meanwhile, TRS president and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has finalised 40 star campaigners who will campaign for the party’s candidates across the state. The list will be submitted to the Election Commis-sion in the first week of November. The main star campaigners will be political bigheads like Mr Chandrasekhar Rao himself, his minister-son K.T. Rama Rao, daughter and Nizamabad MP K. Kavita and his nephew, minister T. Harish Rao.
Family apart, the other star campaigners include Deputy Chief Ministers Kadiam Srihari and Mohd Mahmood Ali, 15 ministers, 14 Lok Sabha members, 6 Rajya Sabha members and three party whips. The advantage with star campaigners will be that the expenditure incurred on them would not be included in the election spending of the contesting candidates. Interestingly, the TRS did not submit a list of star campaigners to the Election Commission for the 2014 elections. Only Mr Chandrasekhar Rao had campaigned for all the candidates in the 2014 elections.
This time, the party has decided to rope in 40 star campaigners as the party foresees a tough fight between TRS and Congress-led Prajaku-tami comprising of the Congress, TD, CPI and the TJS.
Mr Chandrasekhar Rao, who addressed a few public meetings in the headquarters of some districts after the dissolution of House on September 6, is all set to commence Assembly constituency-wise campaigning from the first week of November. He will cover 100 constituencies till the campaigning ends in the first week of December. The party will provide helicopters to ministers who will campaign in the districts as star campaigners.
Prior to the campaign, Mr Rao is planning to address public meetings in the remaining undivided districts. The meetings are expected to commence from October 29 and will be held in Warangal, Khammam and Karimnagar. A big public meeting is also planned in Parade Grounds, Secunderabad.
