Bengal Election 2021: PM Modi was in Kolkata on Sunday weeks ahead of elections.
The BJP has sent a list of 40 star campaigners for Bengal, where it is determined to oust two-time Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee using all resources at hand, including star power and Trinamool Congress defectors.
Besides Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the list includes two Chief Ministers and at least eight Union Ministers.
Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and one of the party's top election campaigners, is no surprise. His Madhya Pradesh counterpart Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also been roped in for the Bengal campaign.
Union Minister Amit Shah will be a regular in this election campaign after he gave Bihar a miss. Though PM Modi addressed multiple rallies in the Bihar election campaign in October-November, Mr Shah had stayed away, preferring to travel to Bengal for party strategy meetings.
Other ministers on the list are Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Dharmendra Pradhan, Smriti Irani and Babul Supriyo.
Actor Mithun Chakraborty, who joined the BJP at a rally addressed by the Prime Minister on Sunday, will also have plenty of platforms to deliver his famous one-liners from.
On Sunday, he gave a large audience at PM's Kolkata Brigade Ground rally a sampler. "Marbo ekhaney...lash porbay shoshaney ('I will thrash you here. Your body will be found at the crematorium)," he said, reciting one from his 2006 hit film, "MLA fatakeshto".
"Here is my new dialogue. Ami joldhorao noi, bele borao noi... ami ekta cobra, ek chobol-ei chhobi (Don't mistake me for a harmless snake, I am a pure cobra - one strike and you are history)," he said.
Several television and movie stars of the Bengal entertainment industry, who joined the BJP recently, will campaign for the party.
The Bengal election, starting on March 27, will stretch over a record eight rounds and 33 days. The results will be declared on May 2.