New Delhi: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani would be among the top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders campaigning for the party ahead of the crucial December 12 Gujarat Assembly elections.

The state election campaign committee, headed by former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, would be chalking out the campaign schedule for the top leaders, which would be later finalised by the headquarters, party sources said.

Union Ministers Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj, Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh, besides party president Venkaiah Naidu and general secretary-in-charge of Gujarat Arun Jaitley would be among the star campaigners of the party, they said, adding all prominent leaders, Central ministers, MPs and important leaders of other states would devote one week time to election campaign in the state.

However, Advani would be spending maximum time in the state as he has been elected to the Lok Sabha from Gandhinagar and electoral victory has become a "prestige issue" for him, the sources said.

While the party has little doubts about the voting pattern of the minorities in the state, it has decided to field Union Civil Aviation Minister Shahnawaz Hussain and party general secretary and spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to project its "secular credentials" and to expose "pseudo-secularists".

PTI