Aurangabad: Former chief minister late Vilasrao Deshmukh’s supporters are upset that his sons have been excluded from the list of star campaigners for the Lok Sabha elections. Many of them have hinted that the old rivalry between him and current Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan might be at hand.The Congress on March 25, has issued the list of 40 star campaigners for the first two phases. Voting for Latur constituency will take place on April 18. Chavan’s wife Ameeta, the MLA from Nanded, is among the star campaigners. Even Chavan’s close aid from Nanded and MLC Amar Rajurkar is on the list.Deshmukh’s supporters have written to Congress president Rahul Gandhi expressing their displeasure. Deshmukh’s elder son, Amit, who is the Latur MLA, and his younger sibling Dhiraj were incidentally star campaigners during the Karnataka assembly elections in 2018.“The list of star campaigners holds various influential persons, who will definitely impact the voting pattern at large. However, on the whole, the list seems mildly imbalanced. Names of few renowned young leaders, including Amit Deshmukh , are missing,” Jitendra Dehade, working president of state Congress SC department, said.Local leaders have also expressed surprise over the exclusion of the names of Maharashtra youth congress president Satyajeet Tambe, party MLA from Dharavi and former woman and child development minister, Varsha Gaikwad, and Congress MLA Yashomati Thakur.Dehade, in his letter to the party president, has cautioned that the exclusion of these names from the list of star campaigners could lead to infighting within the state party unit.“Amit Deshmukh and other young leaders, whose names are missing, are all national secretaries of the party and have reasonable clout in their respective regions. We strongly feel that these leaders must find place in the list of star campaigners during upcoming phases,” he said.A senior party worker, preferring anonymity, said the names of two sons of Vilasrao could have omitted in the wake of political rivalry between the Deshmukh and Chavan families. “The political rivalry between Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan was famous in the political arena of Marathwada. This could be the reason that Ameeta Chavan and Amar Rajurkar were preferred over Amit and Dhiraj,” he said.State Congress chief Chavan could not be reached for his comments. A senior party leader said the Central Election Committee of Congress has all say in deciding party’s star campaigners. “It is wrong to draw any political inferences from the list as it is not possible to include each and every leader,” he said.Along with Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Priyanka Gandhi, the list also includes state leaders such as Ashok Chavan, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Prithviraj Chavan, Balasaheb Thorat, Harshawardhan Patil, Vishwajeet Kadam and Rajiv Satav.

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