With rain god and dust storm giving some respite to senior leaders of the all the Parties who had pushed their entire strength to facilitate victory of their candidates before the campaigning for the third round ended on Tuesday evening, the film stars had added glamour to this round of polls in the State.
For the Samajwadi Party who had their prestige at stake to save their bastion, the lone actress which they brought is Jaya Bhadhuri, to ensure defeat of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s one time close lieutenant, Amar Singh in Fatehpur Sikri. However, Amar Singh had also left stone unturned to add his campaign a much star-studded celebration bringing in from Booney Kapoor-Sri Devi to heart throb of yesteryears Zeenat Aman, along with Ameesha Patel, Mahima Chowdhary and his closest colleague Jaya Parda, who left Samajwadi Party with him.
The power of glamour has been also deeply felt by Jat leader Jayant Chowdhary, pitting against `dream girl’ Hema Malini, fighting on BJP’s ticket. Besides BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, seeking votes for Hema Malini in Mathura, she also brought in her both daughter actresses for a road-show and attract people to vote and support her. For Jayant also, Amisha Patel, and film star turned politician, Raj Babbar, who is also a sitting MP from Ferojabad, campaigned to counter the Bollywood attraction.
Besides the film stars, senior leaders like Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Ajit Singh, and other leaders of their Parties had made hectic campaign for the dozen seats before it came to an end on Tuesday evening. The polling in this phase would be held oncoming Thursday. The fate of prominent leaders which would be sealed in this phase are of Mulayam Singh Yadav, his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav, Ram Gopal Yadav’s son Akshay Yadav, Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chowdhary, Kalyan Singh’s son Rajveer, union minister Salman Khursheed, MP from Akbarpur, Rajaram Pal, Swami Prasad Maurya’s daughter Sangh Mitra Maurya, Rambeer Upadhaya’s wife Seema Upadhya, Amar Singh, Hema Malini etc. The seat where polling would take place included Mathura, Fatehpur Sikri, Ferojabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Farukabad, Kannauj, Akberpur, along with fore reserved seats of Agra, Hardoi, Hathras, and Etawah.
Meanwhile chief electoral officer (CEO) Umesh Sinha claimed that to ensure free and fair elections, they had put 12 general observers, 12 expenditure observers, along wth 2 police observers, 1 awareness observer and 5207 micro observers in this phase. The total number of polling stations in this phase are 21946 while Commission would provide 23702 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to conduct smooth polling which would start from 7am and end at 6pm on coming Thursday.
A total of 2,03,14,442 candidates which included 1,11,65,759 males and 91,14,044 females besides others would caste their votes in this phase having eight general and four reserved constituencies, Umesh Sinha disclosed.
Four lok Sabha seats had more than sixteen candidates in fray with maximum of 28 candidates are from Fatehpur Sikri while minimum is at Hathras having just 9 contestants. Out of total 188 contestants who were fighting for 12 seats in this phase, 20 of them were also females. Agra having over 18.14 lakhs voters is the biggest constituency electorate wise while Etah is at bottom having just 15.77 lakh voters.
While BJP, SP and BSP had fielded their candidates on all the seats, Congress is just in field on half of the total seats in this fray and left three seats for RlD, 1 for Mahan Dal. Congress not put any one in fray from Mainpuri and Kannauj, from where Mulayam Singh Yadav and his daughter-in-law Dimple were seeking re-entry to Parliament.