Campaigning for second phase of polling in Chhattisgarh ends

Raipur: Campaigning for the second phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, to be held on November 19, came to an end on Sunday evening.

The campaign saw rallies addressed by Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi, L K Advani and Sushma Swaraj in the state where the BJP government led by Chief Minister Raman Singh is seeking to score a hat-trick against Congress. "Elaborate arrangements have been made for free and fair polling on Tuesday in 72 assembly constituencies of 19 districts," Chief Electoral Officer Sunil Kujur said, adding that campaign ended today evening at 5 pm. A record 75.53 per cent voting was registered in the first phase on November 11 in 18 constituencies of Naxal-affected Bastar and Rajnandgaon regions. In the second phase, 843 candidates, including 75 women, are in fray. Their fate will be decided by 1,39,75,470 voters. The highest number of 38 candidates figure on the ballot paper in Raipur city (south) constituency. A total of 18,015 polling booths have been set up for the second phase, of which 4,594 are `sensitive` and 1,398 `hyper-sensitive`, Kujur said. Some 3,000 video cameras will be used for monitoring. Around 80,000 officials and over one lakh security personnel would be on duty on the polling day.