New Delhi, April 18
The cacophony of rallies and
election meetings came to an end in 140 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across
16 states which go to the polls in the first phase on April 20.
The fate of
more than 800 candidates, including Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, eight
Union ministers, two former Lok Sabha Speakers and three former Chief Ministers,
will be decided during Tuesday’s poll as campaigning in these constituencies
drew to a close at 5 p.m. today.
As temperatures reached more than 40°C in
some areas, star campaigners of the NDA and the Congress, led by Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, criss-crossed the
length and breadth of the country and raised the pitch to woo the
electorate.
The April 20 polling will cover all 11 seats from Chhattisgarh, 26
from Gujarat and two from Meghalaya, 21 of the 42 from Andhra Pradesh, six of
the 14 from Assam, six of the 14 from Jharkhand, 15 of the 28 from Karnataka, 24
of the 48 from Maharashtra, 11 of the 21 from Orissa, 11 of the 40 from Bihar
and two of the six from Jammu and Kashmir and one each from Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Mizoram.
The campaign trail
for the 14th Lok Sabha elections has been marked by sporadic comments on family
lineages, with the Gujarat Chief Minister queering the pitch by reportedly
making some adverse comments about Ms Sonia Gandhi and her children.
The
prominent persons involved in the first phase of polling include Deputy Prime
Minister L. K. Advani (BJP) from Gandhinagar (Gujarat), former Prime Minister H.
D. Deve Gowda (Janata Dal-Secular) from Kanakapura (Karnataka), Railway Minister
Nitish Kumar (Janata Dal-United) from Barh and Nalanda in Bihar, External
Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha (BJP, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand), Mr Jaipal Reddy
(Congress, Miryalaguda, Andhra Pradesh), Mr Shankarsinh Vaghela (Congress,
Kapadvanj, Gujarat) and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi (Congress)
from Mahasamund.
There are 1,115 candidates in the fray from the 140
constituencies and with the end of the formal campaigning, aspirants and their
supporters are now literally adopting the `walk-the-talk’ model through
door-to-door campaigning as a last-ditch attempt to woo the electorate.
From
SMS to telephone calls and recorded messages, the campaign managers have sought
to maximise the reach by combining tools of information technology with
conventional methods.
The BJP and its allies are seeking the mandate of the
people on the basis of the feel-good factor in the economy and have raised the
issue of Ms Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin.
The Congress and other opposition
parties, on the other hand, have charged the NDA government with non-performance
and turned the heat on the BJP following the Supreme Court order for a re-trial
in the Gujarat riots case and the death of 21 women in a stampede at Lucknow,
the constituency of Mr Vajpayee.
The first phase of elections will also cover
Assembly elections in 147 of the 294 constituencies in Andhra Pradesh, 120 out
of the 224 seats in Karnataka and 77 out of the 147 seats in Orissa.
