Mumbai, March 27 (IANS): The BJP on Wednesday announced the list of 40 star campaigners for Maharashtra where the party, along with MahaYuti allies, has set an ambitious target of 45 plus of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Interestingly, the BJP has included names of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar and union minister of state Ramdas Athavale indicating that the party treats allies on par to achieve its ambitious target in Maharashtra and at the national level of 400 plus seats.

Similarly, former Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader Ashok Chavan, who is now Rajya Sabha member after joining the BJP, figured in the list.

BJP insiders said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to address about 25 rallies during five phases of election.

The list of star campaigners was announced a day before the MahaYuti plans to announce seat sharing agreement (on Thursday).

The list of star campaigners include PM Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, Gujarat CM Bhupendra Patel, Chhattisgarh CM) Vishnu Deo Sai, Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav , Rajasthan CM Bhajanlal Sharma, Maharashtra CM Shinde and Deputy CM Pawar.

Union Ministers Narayan Rane, Anurag Thakur, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Smriti Irani, MoS Raosaheb Danve-Patil, former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis are also included in the list.

Other star campaigners include Sampat Choudhari, Vinod Tawde, Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Ashish Shelar, Pankaja Munde Palve, Chandrakant Patil, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, Piyush Goyal, Girish Mahajan, Ravindra Chavan, K Annamalai, Manoj Tiwari, Ravi Kisan, Amar Sable, Vijaykumar Gavit, Atul Save and Dhananjay Mahadik.