A fractious Lok Sabha election campaign came to an end on Saturday with political leaders trading personal attacks and many accusing the other over development and corruption.
Forty-one seats will go to polls on Monday. Of these 18 are in eastern UP, six in Bihar and 17 in West Bengal.
The focus of the last day of electioneering was on Varanasi, where Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav took out two separate road shows in a bid to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Mr. Gandhi attacked Mr. Modi for allegedly asking his police to snoop on a woman. “Say that you will respect women and stop sending the police to tail women or tap their phones in Gujarat,” he said.
He alleged that Mr. Modi “had provided 45,000 acres of agriculture lands at the rate of Rs. 1 per square metre, while he demanded thousands of rupees for the same land from the Air Force.”
The Gujarat Chief Minister was also in the neighbourhood, addressing five rallies across U.P. He attacked Congress president Sonia Gandhi, New Delhi’s intelligentsia and even the Left parties for practising the politics of “untouchability” against him.
Entering the ring in Azamgarh to counter the ‘Modi-wave’ will be Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh, who is also contesting from his traditional seat Mainpuri.
In Azamgarh, Mr. Singh faces the challenge of sitting BJP MP and former associate Ramakant Yadav and local BSP MLA Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali.
The Rashtriya Ulema Council chief Aamir Rashadi Madani is also in the fray and could hurt the prospects of Mr. Singh.
Jaunpur will also witness an interesting contest as Bhojpuri movie star Ravi Kishan is in the fray on a Congress ticket, while SP MP Neeraj Shekhar, the son of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar's son, is defending his seat in Ballia.
BJP MP in Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath, known for his hardliner Hinduvta stance, will look to win the seat for the fifth time in a row. Former Congress leader and sitting MP in Domariyaganj, Jagdimbika Pal will contest his seat on a BJP ticket. Meanwhile, West Bengal chief electoral officer has requested the Election Commission to deploy an additional general observer as a confidence building measure for the polling on Monday.
(With inputs from Omar Rashid)
