JOIN USLS polls: Second phase campaign ends
The campaign for the second phase of Lok Sabha elections, including in 14 seats in Karnataka, ended on Tuesday, which witnessed intensive and heated electioneering by 1,621 candidates in 96 seats.
The election to Vellore Lok Sabha seat in Tamil Nadu, which was to go to polls in the second phase with 23 candidates, was rescinded over reports of use of excess money power. Otherwise, 97 seats would have gone to polls.
During the day, the Election Commission also issued notification for the sixth phase of the elections in which 59 seats in seven states will go to polls on May 12. Fourteen seats in Uttar Pradesh, 10 in Haryana, eight each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, seven in Delhi and four in Jharkhand are going to polls in the sixth phase.
In the second phase of polls on April 18, the fate of candidates in 96 seats in 13 states and union territories will be sealed.
All the 38 seats in Tamil Nadu and 14 out of 28 in Karnataka are going to polls in the second phase while another eight in western Uttar Pradesh also hits the polling booths on Thursday.
The prominent candidates in Karnataka in this phase include former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, his grandsons Nikhil Kumaraswamy (Mandya) and Prajwal Revanna (Hassan), Union Minister Sadananda Gowda (Bengaluru-North), former Union Minister and senior Congress leader K H Muniyappa (Kolar) and senior Congress leader B K Hariprasad (Bengaluru South).
Other candidates include Dayanidhi Maran (DMK), Kanimozhi (DMK), Karti Chidambaram (Congress), A Raja (DMK), Sushmita Dev (Congress), Jual Oram, Jitendra Singh and Pon Radhakrishnan (BJP) are also fielded again. Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, BJP's Hema Malini, PMK Anbumani Ramadoss and Tarique Anwar, who left NCP to join Congress, are among other prominent candidates.
The last day of the campaign saw the absence of BSP chief Mayawati and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as they were barred from campaigning for 48 hours and 72 hours respectively from Thursday 6 AM.
The SP-BSP-RLD campaign ended with a rally in Agra where Mayawati's nephew Akash Anand made his maiden political address urging people to vote for the alliance. Indicating a succession plan in BSP, Akash was seated on one of the four seats on the dais with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, RLD president Ajit Singh and BSP general secretary S C Misra.
Besides Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and UP, ten in Maharashtra, five seats in Assam, Bihar and Odisha, three each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, two in Jammu and Kashmir and one each in Manipur, Tripura and Puducherry are going to polls.