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| Polls conclude today | | | ET DESK
Jammu, May 12: The fifth and final phase of the most keenly fought Lok Sabha elections in recent times will conclude tomorrow with polling to 86 seats, but there is no clear picture of who would form the next government.
The general elections for 543 seats of the lower house of Parliament are widely expected to throw a hung verdict, but the struggle for power is mainly among the ruling Congress-led UPA coalition, the BJP-led NDA and the Third Front headed by the Left parties.
Campaigning during the month long elections have been acerbic, with leaders attacking the character and qualities of one another while the common people gave vent to their anger by firing footwear missiles on the likes of none other than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and BJP's PM hopeful L K Advani, among others.
Polling has been completed to 457 Lok Sabha seats since the exercise began on April 16 amid stray violence that left over 20 dead. Results will be out on May 16.
The final leg would see election of 86 MPs and among the contenders are Congress' P Chidambaram and Md Azharuddin, BJP's Maneka and Varun Gandhi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, DMK's T R Baalu, A Raja, Dayanidhi Maran and M K Azhagiri, MDMK's Vaiko, TC chief Mamata Banerjee and SP's Jayaprada.
A party or a coalition needs 272 seats in the Lok Sabha to stake claim to form a government.
The Lok Sabha has 545 members, but elections are held to 543 seats as two members are nominated from the Anglo- Indian community.
Congress' Mani Shankar Aiyar and Sajjad Gani Lone of People's Conference also feature in the list of prominent names in this leg, in which 10.78 crore voters can choose from 1,432 candidates including 93 women.
Elections would be held to all 39 seats in the key state of Tamil Nadu and four seats in Himachal Pradesh, two in Jammu and Kashmir, nine in Punjab, 14 in Uttar Pradesh, 11 in West Bengal, five in Uttarakhand and the lone one seat each in both Chandigarh and Puducherry.
The Left Parties, whom Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi had sent feelers to for a post-poll tie-up, too have indicated that they were keeping options open.
"Let the elections be over. Let the results come...After May 16, we will see," said CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat, whose party had withdrawn support to the Congress-led UPA over the Indo-US civil nuclear deal.
Elsewhere, Jayalalithaa denied that the AIADMK was in secret talks with others for an alliance.
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