AMN /
Campaigning for 1st phase Assembly polls in Assam and West Bengal came to an end today. In Assam, 65 constituencies will go to polls in this phase on Monday. A total of 539 candidates are in the fray.
Of them, 122 candidates are below the age of 40, and 39 are below 30 years of age. First phase will decide the fate of prominent candidates like Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who is fighting from home turf Titabar, and BJP Chief Ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal, who is contesting from Majuli.
BJP MP Kamakhya Prasad Tasha is also contesting from Titabar constituency.
Assam has a total of 1 crore 99 lakh voters, out of which over 93 lakh 93 thousand 400 will vote in the first phase.
More than one crore 48 thousand people will excercise their franchise in the second phase.
In West Bengal, campaigning in 18 assembly constituencies in Paschim Medinipur, Purulia and Bankura districts going to poll on 4th April.
Addressing a campaign rally in Durgapur and Bankura on Saturday, Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi said Kolkata flyover tragedy is a result of corruption.
The entire project will be probed if the Congress-Left combination is voted to power.
Trinamul Congress, TMC, chairperson and chief minister, Mamata Banerjee launched a counter attack addressing TMC rallies at various places in Bankura.
Saying that Congress has sold itself to CPI-M, Ms. Banerjee said the party has lost its ideology and self-respect. Siddharth Nath Singh of BJP targeted both CPI-M and TMC for the flyover tragedy in Kolkata.
Terming the tragedy as ‘’Flygate” he said both CPI-M and the TMC have to answer for loss of so many innocent lives in the accident. The CPI-M state secretary, Surjya Kanta Mishra gave a call to people of Bengal to vote on Monday without fear.
Alleging that Ms. Banerjee is issuing veiled threats to the people, Mr. Mishra said all the voters should remain united and face the ruling parties threat and cast their votes without pressure.
Having fielded party candidates on most of the 294 assembly seats, BJP on Saturday released its manifesto committing to drive out all infiltrators, who are either from Pakistan or Bangladesh, introduce rationality and bring down power tariff and make the state DA equal to the Centre.
The manifesto referring to correct the issues relating to health, finance, agriculture, industry and corruption, attacked the ruling TMC on these fronts.