Campaigning ends in 24 State constituencies

MUMBAI, February 20: The campaign for the second phase of the polls on Sunday involing 108 seats, ended today on a lacklustre note. However, the campaign mill of political parties, which appeared to suffer from the monotony of familiar themes, was provided with fresh gist after the serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore that left 60 people dead. The report of the Srikrishna Commission enquiring into the 1992-93 Mumbai roits gave one more campaign material for parties in Maharashtra.

The voting will decide the fortunes of a number of prominent stars in the political firmament, including the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Atal Behari Vajpayee from Lucknow. Also at stake will be electoral fortunes of Union Ministers Indrajit Gupta, Ram Vilas Paswan, Mulayam Singh Yadav, S Jaipal Reddy, P Chidambaram (Sivaganga) and former speaker Shivraj Patil.The second round will cover 33 seats in Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh (21), Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu (24), Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal (20), Karnataka andOrissa (10) and Pondicherry (1).

In Maharashtra polling will be in Dhule, Nandurbar, Erandole, Jalgaon, Buldhana, Akola, Washim, Amravati, Ramtek, Nagpur, Bhandara, Chimoor, Chandrapur, Wardha, Yavatmal, Hingoli, Nanded, Parbhani, Beed, Latur, Osmanabad, Solapur, Pandharpur and Sangli.