Poll campaigning ends in Punjab, U’khand
The
campaigning by and large remained peaceful in the state which saw
national leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress
president Sonia Gandhi, General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, BJP leaders L K
Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Uma Bharti and BSP
Chief Mayawati criss-cross the state.
Besides
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son Deputy Chief Minister
Sukhbir Singh Badal, the other campaigners included Team Anna members
who, however, did not advocate in favour or any political party
confining their campaign to corruption and setting up of a strong
Lokpal.
Film
and TV actors Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha, Rajesh Khanna, Kirron Kher
and Samriti Irani and a host of local singers and actors, including
Gurdas Mann, Harbhajan Mann and Gurpreet Ghuggi besides
cricketer-turned-politicians Navjot Sidhu and Mohd Azharudin added to
the colour.
The
other leaders who visited the state included Union Ministers Ambika
Soni and Ghulam Nabi Azad, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar
Dhumal, former Chief Ministers of Rajasthan and Haryana Vasundhara Raje
Scindia and Om Parkash Chautala, respectively.
Leaders
of Left and other parties, including Brinda Karat and Sitaram Yechury,
also toured the state which will see a total of 1,078 candidates,
including 93 women, in fray. About 1.76 crore voters, including 83.61
lakh women, will seal the fate of the candidates at 19,841 polling
stations, including five identified as "hyper sensitive" and 32 as
"sensitive".
Besides
Punjab Police personnel, about 200 companies of central paramilitary
forces will be deployed in the state to ensure free and fair polling.
Electioneering comes to end in Uttarakhand
Electioneering outdoor for the 30th
January assembly poll in Uttarakhand on Saturday came to an end after
which candidates switched over to door-to-door campaign in a last-minute
attempt to woo voters.
A
total of 788 candidates are trying their luck from 70 constituencies in
the state where over 63 lakh electorates are expected to exercise their
franchise on Monday.
Electioneering
picked up towards the fag end as bad weather hampered the movement of
national leaders during the early phase of campaign. BJP President Nitin
Gadkari and some other leaders' visits were also cancelled due to the
inclement weather.
During
the electioneering, Congress had attacked BJP on changing chief
ministers frequently to cover up its alleged scams and asked the people
to vote on development plank.
Congress
General Secretary Rahul Gandhi tried to puncture the campaign of BJP
"Khanduri (incumbent chief minister B C Khanduri) hai zaroori" by
stating why he was removed in 2009 if he was so important.
Ruling
BJP highlighted scams relating to 2G spectrum allocation, Commonwealth
Games and Adarsha Housing Society in a bid to nail down Congress and
asked the people to vote for the party for showing its commitment to
weeding out corruption by bringing a strong Lokayukta bill.
The star campaigners from BJP and Congress also crisscrossed the hill state during the fortnight-long electioneering.
Chief Minister B C Khanduri addressed nearly two dozen rallies across the state during the past four to five days.
During
his meetings, Khanduri had raked up emotive issues including the
Muzaffarnagar massacre during Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 1994.
"You all know who were the perpetrators of the Muzaffarnagar incident?
You also know that it was only BJP which formed the new state of
Uttarakhand," Khanduri had said.
With
the Election Commission cracking down on use of money power, the
cacophony of the electioneering was missing this time with candidates
shunning big shows of strength.
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