| Azad, Singh keep fingers crossed as campaigning ends | | | Kunal Shrivatsa
JAMMU, Apr 15: The hectic campaigning and intense political maneuvering, which went on for nearly a month, came to an end at 6 this evening in Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat, polling for which will be held on April 17.
The Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha seat, which is the third biggest constituency of the country, comprises as many as 14,34,759 voters and spread across 17 Assembly constituencies in six districts of Ramban, Doda, Kishtwar, Udhampur, Reasi and Kathua.
Like Jammu-Poonch parliamentary constituency, this seat is also witnessing a close contest between Congress and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) while the other parties including Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) and Jammu Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) are also making their presence felt.
While old warhorse of Congress Ghulam Nabi Azad is fighting the contest as party nominee from Udhampur-Doda, its archrival BJP has fielded Dr Jitendra Singh, who is posing a stiff challenge to Congress.
PDP is being represented by Arshad Malik while Prof Bhim Singh is in the race as a JKNPP candidate.
During the campaigning, all the parties used every trick up their sleeves to influence the voters be it big election rallies, road shows, small public meetings or door to door canvassing.
In their bid to persuade the voters, the main rivals Congress and BJP also utilized the services of film stars turned politicians Raj Babbar of Congress and Vinod Khanna of BJP, who had to spare time from their busy schedules as both campaigned for their respective party candidates even though they themselves are contesting elections from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Gurdaspur in Punjab respectively.
On the last day of the campaigning, candidates of all the major political parties made all out efforts to woo the voters and tried their best to turn the ide in their favour.
To make the most of it on the penultimate day ahead of polling, the Congress candidate Azad held series of election meetings in Marwah, Dacchan, Warwan, Machail and Gajhot in Kishtwar district while he hit the campaign trail with road shows in several parts of Bhaderwah Assembly segment in Doda district.
Azad was accompanied by senior Congress leader and Minister for R&B Abdul Majid Wani, Congress MLAs from Bhaderwah and Inderwal Mohammad Sharief Niaz and G M Saroori respectively, Congress MLCs Naresh Gupta and B R Kundal besides National Conference leader and Minister for Home Sajjad Ahmad Kitchloo at different venues of public meetings.
If Azad and his colleagues spearheaded the Congress canvassing in several parts of the constituency, the BJP's campaign was led by none other than its national President Rajnath Singh, who addressed a election rally at Udhampur in favour of his party candidate Dr Singh while the local BJP leaders including Chander Prakash Ganga, Ashok Koul, Rajesh Gupta and Yudhvir Sethi sweat it out to seek votes in favour of party nominee in Bani and Doda.
With stage set for a grueling battle on April 17, all eyes are now set on the voting percentage in Udhampur-Doda Lok Sabha segment.
If the heavy turnout of 71 percent in Jammu-Poonch seat is any indication then the electorate in this Lok Sabha seat could also throng the polling booths to set a new record of polling percentage.
In the last two Lok Sabha elections of 2004 and 2009, the polling percentage, however, remained under fifty as the poll percentage recorded in 2004 was 45.09 which decreased by 0.21 percent as a turnout of only 44.88 percent was witnessed in 2009.
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