Campaigning ends for Sonia, Advani

Campaigning ends on Tuesday for round-three elections to Lok Sabha on April 30, when electors would decide the fate of political giants like Sonia Gandhi and L K Advani.

Rae Barelli and Gandhinagar, the respective Parliamentary constituencies of Gandhi and Advani saw hectic campaigning.

Gandhi's daughter Priyanka and son Rahul canvassed for votes for their mothers, while Advani's daughter Pratibha camped in Gandhinagar to appeal to voters to elect her father like they have done every time since 1991.

Gandhi and Advani are among the 1,567 candidates in the fray in the third phase elections to 107 constituencies spread over nine states and two union territories.

Prominent candidates include former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, JD-U chief Sharad Yadav, former Karnataka chief minister S Bangarappa and union ministers Sriprakash Jaiswal and Jyotiraditya Scindia.

Polling for 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will be completed in one-go. Besides Gujarat, polling will be held in 16 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 15 in Uttar Pradesh, 14 in West Bengal, 11 each in Bihar and Karnataka, 10 in Maharashtra and one each in Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

Campaigning was peaceful, but marred by incidents of shoe-throwing. A computer engineering student hurled a sneaker towards Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while he was addressing his first poll rally in Gujarat but missed him. No charges were pressed against the youth.

An attempt to throw shoes at Advani was thwarted later. Congress star campaigner Priyanka Vadra condemned the shoe-throwing incident, saying this does not behove of traditions.

"If there is a problem, there are two ways to express it - wrong way and the right way. This is not the right way. This is not our tradition," Vadra had said, but added she was not perturbed about she being made the target of such an attack. "Let them throw, who have to throw."

At the end of the third phase, polling would be completed to 372 seats of the 545-member Lok Sabha. Polling is held only to 543 seats, as two members are nominated from the Anglo-Indian community.