Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Who will outshine the other?

— File photo

Garnering votes:Actor N. Vadivelu canvassing for a DMK candidate recently.

MADURAI: Most of the declared 512 ‘star campaigners' of various political parties shone bright in the fortnight long campaign for the Assembly elections scheduled for Wednesday. With the curtains for the campaign coming down on Monday, even the stars will have to wait till May 13 to know who had outshone the other.

According to information submitted by political parties to the Election Commission, the Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress, CPI, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Pattali Makkal Katchi had the maximum of 40 star campaigners each. The BJP list contained heavyweights such as L.K. Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh and Narendra Modi. Equally heavy was the list of Congress with the names of prominent leaders such as Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi and others filling the top slots. While Hema Malini and Smriti Irani were the two well-known actors in the BJP list, Cheeranjeevi filled their space in the Congress list which also contained the names of former Members of Parliament A.G.S. Rambabu and S.K. Kharventhan as the star campaigners. Apart from its General Secretary J. Jayalalithaa and Treasurer O. Panneerselvam, the AIADMK list contained names of film director R.V. Udhayakumar and actors Senthil, Gundu Kalyanam, Ponnambalam, C.R. Saraswathi, Radha Ravi and Ananda Raj. Of all, the one who took the campaign by storm was comedian N. Vadivelu. He supported the combine led by the DMK and succeeded in gathering huge crowds through his humorous speech. But what impact did it have on the voters would be known only the day of counting.The only party to have a sole star campaigner was Christian Munnetra Kazhagam whose founder president S. Joseph Fernando was declared as the star. The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) had two star campaigners Thol. Thirumavalavan and K. Rajamurthy.

The Janata Party too had two star campaigners, its national president Subramanian Swamy and State president V.S. Chandralekha.

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