Mumbai: Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh are among the 40 "star" campaigners of the party for the October 21 assembly elections in Maharashtra, the first major political contest after the Lok Sabha outing held earlier this year.
Among other top leaders of the party who are expected to hit the hustings are former party president Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the party general secretary in Uttar Pradesh.
Listing Sonia Gandhi, who had kept herself aloof from campaigning during the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year, as a star campaigner underlines the importance the Congress, which has lost state after states, is assigning to the Maharashtra elections. Once a stronghold of the Congress, Maharashtra has slipped out of its grip since the emergence of the BJP.
In the 2014 assembly polls, the Congress could win only 42 seats out of the total 288. Its performance in Lok Sabha polls, wherein it bagged two seats, was even dismal.
In the 2019 general elections, the party won just one seat.
For the October 21 elections, the Congress has tied up with the NCP. The talks with smaller allies for a grand alliance have hit a roadblock over the allocation of seats.