 "Women voters show their fingers marked with indelible ink after casting vote during the first phase of the general elections, at Umpher in Ri-Bhoi district")
A total of 82 candidates, including two former Union ministers, are in the fray for the last phase of Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh where voting will be held for eight seats Sunday.
All these constituencies- Dewas, Ujjain, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Dhar, Indore, Khargone and Khandwa--are currently held by the BJP.
Over 14.9 million voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.
Prominent candidates in the fray are former Union ministers Kantilal Bhuria and Arun Yadav of Congress, who are contesting from Ratlam and Khandwa seats, respectively.
Yadav is pitted against former Madhya Pradesh BJP president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan.
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Of the total eight seats, the BJP has renominated only Chauhan and Sudhir Gupta from Khandwa and Mandsaur, respectively.
Gupta is squaring off against Meenakshi Natarajan, once a confidante of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, from Mandsaur, which had remained a nerve centre of farmers' protests.
The high-pitched campaign for the last phase resolved mainly around the loan waiver scheme of the state Congress government, which came to power in December last year.
The opposition BJP claims that the scheme remains only on paper.
During his rallies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed that Kamal Nath government was sending police personnel as well as recovery notices to farmers rather than writing off their loans.
However, Rahul Gandhi countered the PM saying that several lakh farmers got benefitted due to the scheme.
AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra attracted crowds in Ujjain, Ratlam and Indore while seeking votes for her party.
Talking to reporters Saturday, state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) VL Kantha Rao said, "82 candidates are in the fray for eight seats. While six candidates are contesting from Dewas, nine are in the fray from Ujjain, 13 from Mandsaur, nine from Ratlam, seven from Dhar, 20 from Indore, seven from Khargone and 11 from Khandwa.
A total of 18,411 polling booths, including 1157 all-women centres, are set up for more than 1.49 crore voters, he said.
Among other measures, more than 56,000 security personnel, including 83 companies of Central and 49 companies of state forces, have been deployed to prevent any untoward incident.
"The borders of Madhya Pradesh with adjoining districts have been sealed, he said.
Out of the total 29 seats in MP, election in the first phase was held in six constituencies on April 29, followed by the second phase polls for seven constituencies on May 6 and eight seats in the third phase on May 23.
A voter turnout of 69.26 per cent was recorded in first three phases in Madhya Pradesh, the CEO said.
Counting of votes would be taken up on May 23.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
