It’s going to be Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi’s show on May 7 in Tumkur city and KR Puram, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is going to address the Party workers at Chowdaiah hall in Bangalore. Sonia, who tops the list of the 40 star campaigners of her party, will be in Tumkur city at 2:30 pm. She is scheduled to address a public meeting at 3:30 pm on the same day, at the KR Puram grounds. Manmohan Singh, however, will not be addressing any public rallies.

The party may bring in its youth leader Rahul Gandhi only in the second and third phases, according to AICC General Secretary Prithviraj Chauhan.

The Party’s other star campaigners - Digvijay Singh, Kabil Sibal, Jagadish Tytler and Prithviraj Chauhan - are already camping in Bangalore. Digvijay is mainly in charge of the Congress Bhavan, reviewing the work done by the staff and also collecting information regarding rebels, sources in the Party said. Sibal is mainly in charge of media relations, while Tytler is in charge of campaigning in Bangalore city.

Sources said that the Party has taken on rent two studio apartments - one in the High Grounds area and another on Lavelle Road - to provide accommodation to its star campaigners. Putting up the leaders in star hotels has turned out to be too expensive and hence the apartments have been taken on rent, the sources said.

The Congress is also bringing Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajashekar Reddy to address the Telugu belt of Tumkur, Chikkaballapur and Kolar districts. He will be in Pavagada, Gauribidanur and Bagepalli between noon and 3:30 pm on Tuesday to address the rallies.

Union Minister Ambika Soni will be camping and campaigning in Mysore from May 6 to 9. She will be staying at the Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel.

Advani, Modi

The BJP’s star campaigner L K Advani has already completed one round of campaigning for the first phase. He will address a public meeting on Tuesday, at the National College grounds, Basavanagudi, at 6 pm. Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi will soon be addressing rallies in Kodagu, Kushalnagar and Turuvekere. Venkaiah Naidu too is campaigning in Bangalore.

The JD(S) too has around 40 ‘star’ campaigners, though party chief H D Deve Gowda and his son-former CM H D Kumaraswamy are the ones campaigning extensively. While Kumaraswamy is already on A whirlwind tour of districts that are going to polls in the first phase, Gowda took up campaigning in full swing on Monday, after releasing the party manifesto. Some of the other ‘star’ campaigners of the party are Merajuddin Patel, D Manjunath, Y S V Datta, N Chaluvarayaswamy, Zameer Ahmed Khan, C Narayanaswamy and Abdul Azeem.

Once these leaders are identified as ‘star’ campaigners by the Election Commission, expenses incurred by them for campaign will be accounted as party’s expenditure and not as their individual expenditure, official sources said.