Campaigning ends for Haryana Assembly polls

An aggressive campaigning headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking to bring BJP to power on its own in Haryana for the first time, and by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi to ensure a third term for Bhupinder Singh Hooda government in the state ended this evening.
Campaigning ended at 6 pm for the elections to the 90 member Haryana Assembly to be held on October 15, when 1.63 crore voters, including 87.37 lakh women are expected to vote at 16,357 polling stations to decide the fate of 1,351 candidates, including 109 women.
Modi criss crossed Haryana addressing 11 election meetings during the campaigning. The places visited by him included Sirsa, Gurgaon, Jind, Jagadhari, Sonipat and Rohtak in the process covering almost entire state.

The other BJP campaigners included BJP chief Amit Shah, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Navjot Sidhu, Rao Inderjit Singh, Hema Malini and Vinod Khanna.
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi addressed three meetings including at Tosham in Bhiwani district.
Rahul Gandhi, Shakeel Ahmed, Raj Babbar, Amarinder Singh and Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda were the main campaigners for the Congress.

Congress, besides the rallies, held press conferences almost on a daily basis as part of its campaigning. The press conferences were addressed by Shakeel Ahmed, Anand Sharma, Digvijay Singh and Rajiv Shukla and others.
While the INLD campaigning was led by former chief minister and party chief Om Parkash Chautala who was out on bail on health grounds after being imprisoned in Tihar Jail at New Delhi in the teachers recruitment scam.

Chautala's outing was cut short after CBI approached the Delhi High Court saying that the INLD chief was violating the bail terms by addressing election meetings.
The INLD leader was asked to surrender before the Tihar Jail authorities and he was back in prison on Saturday evening.
BSP chief Mayawati and Prakash Karat of CPM were among the other key campaigners.