Electioneering outdoor for the January 30 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 Adarsh Housing Society in a bid to nail down Congress and asked the people to vote for the party for showing its commitment to weed 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, Mr. Khanduri had raked up emotive issues including the Muzaffarnagar massacre during Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 1994. “You all know who the perpetrators of the Muzaffarnagar incident were? You also know that it was only BJP which formed the new State of Uttarakhand,” Mr. 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.
