Star campaigner
Topic: Electoral Reforms: Money, Criminalisation and Simultaneous Elections · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A star campaigner is a party leader whom the party names to campaign for its candidates. A recognised party can name up to 40, and other parties up to 20. Their travel costs while campaigning are not added to the candidate's election expense account under Section 77 of the RPA 1951. This lets popular leaders tour widely without using up a candidate's spending limit.
Example
A national party names its top leaders as star campaigners for a state election. When one of them flies in for a rally in a constituency, the travel cost does not count towards the local candidate's ₹40 lakh or ₹28 lakh limit.
Don't confuse with
- Party spending in general: no law caps how much a party spends. The star campaigner rule is narrower. It only decides which travel costs stay out of a candidate's account.
Related concepts
- Money power in elections
- Election expenditure limits
- Section 29C of the RPA 1951
- Section 13A of the Income Tax Act 1961
- Cash donation limit
- Corporate donations to political parties
- Foreign funding of political parties
- Electoral trusts