Campaign ends for fourth of Lok Sabha polls

Campaigning ended for the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha election on 96 seats in 10 States and Union Territories on Saturday.

During the campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi continued his attacks against the Opposition, raising a range of issues, including alleged corruption, nepotism, and minority appeasement, while the Opposition’s campaign, led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and others, was based on unemployment, threats to reservation, and economic distress.

Elections to all the seats in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, and 28 seats in the Odisha Assembly, will also take place on Monday.

Among the prominent candidates in the fray are Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj),

Union Ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai) and Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur), Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury (Baharampurl), BJP’s Pankaja Munde (Beed), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi (Hyderabad) and Andhra Pradesh Congress president Y.S. Sharmila (Kadapa).

Union Minister Ajay Kumar Mishra Teni, whose son is an accused in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence case, is eyeing a hattrick from Kheri, while Trinamool Congress’s Mahua Moitra is seeking re-election from Krishnanagar.

Polling will be held on Monday in 17 Lok Sabha seats in Telangana, 25 in Andhra Pradesh, 13 in Uttar Pradesh, …ve in Bihar, four in Jharkhand, eight in Madhya Pradesh, 11 in Maharashtra, four in Odisha, eight in West Bengal and one in Jammu and Kashmir.

(With PTI inputs)

SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann during a roadshow in New Delhi on Saturday.