Hyderabad: Political parties entered a crucial 36-hour period before the Lok Sabha elections begin at 8 am on Thursday to ensure their ‘poll management’ is in place, after the campaign ended at 5 pm on Tuesday.
The TRS started the campaign much ahead of the notification on March 18 and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao intensified his canvassing on March 29 and ended it a day early, on Monday at Vikarabad.
Mr Chandrasekhar Rao has asked voters for all 17 seats to power his Federal Front dream.
TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao closed electioneering for the party with a road show at Nalgonda and top Opposition leaders tried to convince the voters at the last minute. MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi held a public meeting at Khilwat ground.
BJP president Amit Shah addressed meeting on the last day of the campaign, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, BSP supremo Mayawati and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
In all 443 candidates including 299 independents are in the fray for the 17 seats in the state, most notably 180 farmers from Nizamabad.
Mr Chandrasekhar Rao chose his campaign-concluding meeting to give a strong reply to his AP counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu, who had targeted him throughout the campaign.
He said the BJP and the Congress will not get a majority and the field would be open for a new grouping of arparties. The TRS said the two national parties had failed to deliver and the time had come for regional parties.
Mr Modi targeted Mr Chandrasekhar Rao and the TRS’ alliance with the MIM and called Mr Owaisi a speedbreaker. The MIM chief in his vigorous campaign targeted Mr Modi and Mr Rahul Gandhi. Mr Gandhi alleged that the BJP and the TRS had a tacit understanding.
During the course of the campaign, incidentally, several leaders defected from their home parties most notably to the TRS and the BJP. The defectors were later given tickets by their new parties, including Ms D.K. Aruna by the BJP and Mr Nama Nageswara Rao by the TRS.
In the process, the Congress is left with 11 MLAs and is in the danger of losing its Leader of Opposition status.
To reach the widest audience, the TRS released leaflets and aired radio spots in nine languages to reach out to non-local voters.
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