PANAJI: Top leaders from the state like DK Shivakumar, Satish Jarkiholi, MB Patil, Mallikarjun Kharge and Siddaramaiah and several other noted politicians from the Congress party figure in the list of 30-star party campaigners headed by Sonia Gandhi for the upcoming assembly elections in Goa.
According to top party sources, the star campaigners will be involved in a hectic campaign until the start of February 14 elections to be held for the 40 assembly seats in the coastal state. The party leaders, headed by MLA Dinesh Gundurao and P Chidambaram have been camping in Goa for the past several days and holding rallies and party meetings at regular intervals.
The start campaigners are, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Mallikarjun Kharge, P Chidambaram, Dinesh Gundurao, Girish Chodankar, Digambar Kamat, Francisco Sardinha, Randeep Surjewala, Ashok Gehlot, Oomen Chandy, Siddaramaiah, Ashok Chavan, Sachin Pilot, Ramesh Chennithala, D K Shivakumar, Shashi Tharoor, H K Patil, M B Patil, Ramakant Khalap, Amit Deshmukh, Nana Patole, Yashomati Thakur, R V Deshpande, Satish Jarkiholi, Kanhaiya Kumar, Imran Pratapgarhi, Netta D'Souza, B V Srinivas.
Despite emerging as the single-largest party in the last assembly elections winning 17 seats against 13 of the BJP, the party failed to form the government in the state with many of its MLAs switching over to the BJP to help the latter form the government.
However, KPCC Working President Satish Jarkiholi, one of the star campaigners in Goa says the party is confident to put up another good show this time around. He said the Congress leadership had resolved to bring the party to power in Goa and working on its campaign effectively.
DK Shivakumar, Satish Jarkiholi, Laxmi Hebbalkar, Dinesh Gundurao and many of the party leaders have already visited several assembly segments in the state in an attempt to reach out to as many voters as possible for the past month. Jarkiholi has formed his separate team of volunteers from the party and is involved in campaigning at the grassroots in both the North and South districts of the coastal state.