Campaigning for Delhi assembly poll ends

The campaigning in Delhi saw major parties fielding top leaders like Sonia Gandhi, L K Advani and Narendra Modi who addressed a series of rallies

The campaigning for the December 4 Delhi assembly polls, seen as a major battle ahead of next year's Lok Sabha election, ended this evening as all major contenders for power made last-minute attempts to woo voters.

With this, the curtain came down on campaigning in all the five states of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi which were due to assembly polls.

The campaigning in Delhi saw major parties fielding top leaders like Sonia Gandhi, L K Advani, Narendra Modi, Mayawati and Nitish Kumar who addressed a series of rallies.

Nascent Aam Admi Party confined its electioneering mainly to door-to-door campaigning and is seen as potentially a major force with opinion polls project significant support base for it.

A total of 1.19 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise on Wednesday. There are over 4.05 lakh first-time voters.

BJP's high-voltage campaign was led by party veteran L K Advani and its Prime Ministerial candidate Modi who targeted Sheila Dikshit dispensation on various issues while appealing to people to use the opportunity to vote out the "corrupt" Congress government which has been in power for 15 years.

Both Congress and BJP, main contenders for power, have dismissed AAP as a serious contender though pre-poll surveys project considerable support for the party.

While Congress harped on development it brought to the city, BJP accused it of pilling up miseries on the common man while promising to bring down the power tariff by 30 per cent besides setting up a commission to examine how food prices can be slashed.

Modi did a whirlwind tour in the city addressing a number of election meetings during which he attacked the Congress government for its "failure" in tackling major issues facing the city.