Duelling campaign for the April 23 round-two Lok Sabha elections in 141 constituencies ends today, leaving contestants including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Ramvilas Paswan and Sushma Swaraj to wait for voters to decide their fate.
At the end of the second phase, polls would be completed to 265 seats, just seven short of the magic number that parties need to form a government in the 545-member house. Elections are held to only 543 seats, as two members are nominated from the Anglo-Indian community.
Rahul Gandhi is seeking re-election from the Gandhi family pocket-borough of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh, Pawar from the newly created seat of Madha in Maharashtra, Swaraj from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh and Paswan from Hajipur in Bihar.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath is contesting from Chhindwara constituency in Madhy Pradesh, while other prominent candidates include Akhilesh Prasad Singh (Purvi Champaran, Bihar), Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (Vaishali, Bihar) and Raghunath Jha (Valmikinagar, Bihar).
A total of 2,041 candidates, including 121 women, are in the fray in this round. The States to be covered are Andhra Pradesh (20 Lok Sabha seats), Assam (11), Bihar (13), Goa (2), Jammu and Kashmir (1), Karnataka (17), Madhya Pradesh (13), Maharashtra (25), Manipur (1), Orissa (11), Tripura (2), Uttar Pradesh (17) and Jharkhand (8).
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