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Campaign for the first phase of polling in ten constituencies of Vidarbha region is drawing to an end on Tuesday.
There are 201 candidates in the fray for the April 10 elections, whose fate will be decided by 1,21,75,662 voters, out of which 62,23,581 are men and 58,52,041 women.
Of the 201 candidates, 90 are independents and 15 are women candidates.
There are 80 candidates from the registered political parties other than the recognised state and national parties. The Congress is contesting seven, the Nationalist Congress Party( NCP) three, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) six and the Shiv Sena four. The Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded nominees in all the 10 seats while the Communist Party of India (CPI) is in fray in one seat.
All eyes will be on former BJP President Nitin Gadkari making his electoral debut against congress veteran Vilas Muttenwar who is seeking a seventh term in Nagpur. Aam Aadmi Party state convenor Anjali Damania who made corruption allegations against Gadkari is also in fray.
Similarly, Union Heavy Industries minister and NCP leader Praful Patel is contesting from Bhandara-Gondia, CWC member and senior Congress leader Mukul Wasnik is seeking re-election from Ramtek. Congress ministers in the state cabinet Shivajirao Moghe is contesting from Yavatmal-Washim, while Sanjay Deotale is contesting from Chandrapur.
The other constituencies include Wardha, Akola, Buldhana, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Amravati. The highest number of 33 candidates in fray are in Nagpur and lowest of seven are in Akola.
There are eight constituencies where the total number of candidates are more than 16. Nagpur has the highest number of 1,629,756 voters while Bhandara-Gondia has the least 1,005,780 voters.
United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, NCP President Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray, BJP Prime Ministerial nominee Narendra Modi have addressed rallies in Vidarbha and campaigned for their respective candidates.
