Polling for 536 seats ends on Oct 3
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Oct 1 — Electioneering for the fifth and final phase of current election drew to a close with 118 Lok Sabha constituencies going to polls on Saturday.

Barring, the Outer Manipur and Anantnag Parliamentary constituency which goes to polls on Monday and five including four in Bihar now rescheduled for October 28, polling for rest of 536 constituencies should be complete by October 3.

The Election Commission today said that apart from Purnea, Rajmahal, Bhagalpur and Khagalia Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar, voting in Dhubri in Assam will also be held on October 28.

The election process in these five Parliamentary constituencies will be completed by November 5 and repoll if any in these constituencies will be on October 30. Counting will be held on November 1.

Of the 118 Parliamentary constituencies going to polls are 42 in West Bengal, 31 in Uttar Pradesh, 13 in Assam, 12 in Bihar, 11 in Orissa, two each in Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura and one each in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Lakshadweep.

There are candidates in fray including the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee from Lucknow, the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi from Amethi, The Bahujan Samaj Party Vice-President, Ms Mayawati from Akbarpur, former Prime Minister and Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) President, Mr Chandra Shekhar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal President, Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav from Madhepura in Bihar, the Biju Janata Dal President, Mr Naveen Patnaik from Aska in Orissa and Trinamool Congress President Ms Mamata Banerjee from Calcutta South

Among the other prominent candidates are Dr Karan Singh of the Congress from Lucknow, former Union Minister, Arun Nehru of the BJP from Rae Bareli, former Union Home Minister Indrajit Gupta of the CPI from Midnapore, former West Bengal Chief Minister Siddhartha Shankar Roy from Calcutta North-West and Deputy Speaker of 12th Lok Sabha, Mr P.M. Sayeed of the Congress from Lakshadweep.

Polling for four seats in Bihar, one in Jammu and Kashmir and another in Assam besides part of Katihar seat in Bihar will be held later following the killing of candidates and disruption caused by floods.

AMETHI(PTI): Shoot-at-sight orders have been issued against poll offenders in this high profile Lok Sabha constituency where the fate of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her BJP rival Sanjay Singh will be sealed in ballot boxes on Sunday.

The administration has geared up to ensure free and fair poll. It will seal all entry-points to this vast constituency, where the administration claims to have made fool-proof arrangements and deployed additional forces, taking their strength to more than double to that of last year’s deployment.

A total of six election observers have been deputed to oversee the poll process in this seat which has been in media glare. There is growing apprehension of poll-related violence, booth-capturing and rigging among the people here who feel such incidents or threats could be witnessed in Amethi and Jagdishpur assembly segments where they have occurred in the past few years.

Out of 1302 polling booths, 367 have been declared "hyper-sensitive" and 320 "sensitive". The main contesting parties have lodged several complaints of intimidation of their supporters, threatening of voters and minor incidents of attacks and tension.

Amethi, which now has an electorate of 11.1 lakh, has traditionally been held by the Congress, barring elections in 1977 when Sanjay Gandhi was defeated by Janata Party’s Ravindra Pratap Singh by over 76,000 votes and last year when Raja of Amethi and the present BJP nominee beat former Petroleum Minister Capt Satish Sharma by about 23,000 votes.

In 1952 and 1957, this seat was represented by then Information Minister B.V. Keskar, while in 1962 the Raja of Amethi and Sanjay Singh’s father, Rananjay Singh, won from here. Another prominent Congress leader Vidyadhar Vajpai was elected from here in the 1967 general election and 1971 midterm poll.

While Sanjay Gandhi was defeated in 1977, he won the 1980 mid-term polls defeating Janata Party’s Ravindra Pratap Singh by over 1.3 lakh votes.

After Sanjay’s accidental death, Rajiv Gandhi contested this seat and became a first-time MP in 1981 byelections. He defeated Lok Dal’s Sharad Yadav by 2.25 lakh votes.

Rajiv won the seat again in 1984 beating his sister-in-law Maneka Gandhi, who had floated the Rashtriya Sanjay Manch, by a whopping margin of 3.15 lakh. He won again in 1989 defeating Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson and JD rival, Rajmohan Gandhi, by over two lakh votes. BSP leader Kanshi Ram lost his deposit.

Rajiv won this seat in 1991 elections but was killed before he could know the result. In the byelections caused by his death, his close friend Capt Satish Sharma defeated BJP rival Madan Mohan Singh by about one lakh votes.

Capt Satish Sharma won again in 1996 beating BJP's Raj Mohan Singh by about 50,000 votes. However, Mr Sharma was defeated by Sanjay Singh in the last polls.

Caste and communal equations which were unimportant during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure, have started becoming a major factor in the elections lately, political observers say.

Campaigning here was mainly carried out by Priyanka Gandhi for her mother and by several senior BJP leaders for Sanjay Singh. The only BJP rally to be addressed by Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee was completely disrupted by thunderstorm last evening.