Offensive personal jibes dominate campaign for phase-IV

High voltage campaigning for the fourth phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, which was marked by offensive personal jibes, came to an end this evening in 53 Assembly constituencies spread over 12 districts.
In this phase of polling to be held on Thursday, Assembly segments in Congress President Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituency will be among those where the electoral exercise will take place.
However, for the first time since 1998, Sonia gave campaigning a miss in her constituency.
Other districts going to polls in this phase are Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Banda, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot and Fatehpur.

Racing against time to reach to the maximum voters, BJP president Amit Shah and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav today held parallel roadshows in Allahabad.
Campaigning for the fourth phase, polling for which will be held on Thursday, saw the leaders make personal attacks at each other.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi repeatedly targeted the SP- Congress alliance and the BSP, particularly their leaders Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, respectively. Akhilesh and Mayawati hit back at him.
"SCAM stands for SP, Congress, Akhilesh and Mayawati," Modi said in his election rally in Bundelkhand as he appealed to the voters to get rid of them.

He also termed BSP as "Behenji Sampatti Party", to which Mayawati retorted instantly, saying the initials of Narendra Damodardas Modi stood for "Negative Dalit Man".
"He (Modi) is anti-dalit...This negative dalit man does not like that common people give small contributions in running the BSP movement which is also run through donations," an irked Mayawati said.
The Prime Minister, in one of the rallies, sought to suggest that the SP government had indulged in disriminatory supply of electricity on the basis of religion.
Reacting to this, Akhilesh asked Modi to swear by 'Ganga Maiyya' (mother Ganga) if any discrimination had been meted out to his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi.

Amid the verbal free-for-all, Akhilesh also appeared to target Modi by making "donkey" remark while referring to an advertisement of Gujarat government in which megastar Amitabh Bhachchan promotes tourism in the state.
Without taking any name, he advised the "biggest Bollywood actor of the century" not to "campaign for the donkeys of Gujarat".
Modi, Akhilesh and Mayawati were among the host of leaders who made a beeline to backward and water-scarce Bundelkhand region, which also figures in phase-IV of polling.