A hectic campaigning for the 26 Lok Sabha constituencies of Gujarat, where polling will be held in a single phase on April 30, ended today, with BJP aiming for a clean sweep banking on the Modi factor and Congress fighting back to deny it a walk-over.
As many as 413 candidates are in the fray in the state, including the Chief Minister and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi (from Vadodara) and veteran BJP leader L K Advani (Gandhinagar).
Congress leader Madhusudan Mistry is challenging Modi in Vadodara, while senior leader Shankarsinh Vaghela is contesting from Sabarkantha.
AAP, striving to emerge as the third alternative, has fielded candidates in 24 constituencies. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal undertook 'a fact-finding' tour of the state earlier this month, targeting Modi over his development claims.
A total of 4.05 crore voters (2.12 crore male and 1.93 crore female) are eligible to exercise franchise in the state across 45,380 polling stations.
BJP's campaign was centred around the fact that Modi, "a son of the soil", was BJP's candidate for the top job. Invoking Gujarati pride, it is seeking to win all the 26 seats.
Modi campaigned in the state extensively after the completion of sixth phase on April 24.
He sought votes saying that it was time a Gujarati became the PM, and appealed the people to sent "26 lotuses" to the Parliament without looking at individual candidates. On the last day today, Modi addressed six rallies here.
Congress employed its two big guns, party president Sonia Gandhi and vice president Rahul Gandhi in the state. Ahmed Patel, Sonia's political secretary, was stationed in the state to manage the campaign for the last few days.
