It was curtains down on the three weeks of high-decibel campaign for the Telangana elections as the clock struck 5 p.m. on Tuesday in Telangana while it ended an hour earlier in 13 constituencies in the interior areas.
Heli-hopping by the top leaders of all the political parties crisscrossing the State marked the last day of the campaign with impressive crowds welcoming them at roadshows and public meetings. The political parties made their last-ditch efforts to woo the voters towards their respective parties.
The high-voltage campaign was expected with high stakes for all three major political parties — Congress, BJP and the BRS — and there was a no-holds-barred attack on the leaders and the parties by all the parties as they tried to run down them with allegations and charges more than spreading positivity for their respective parties.
Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao led the BRS attack with two meetings on Tuesday, the last one being at Gajwel that he represents in the present Assembly and also seeking a second term from there. He tried to sell the idea that Congress was a villain for Telangana at his last meeting and at all the 96 meetings that he addressed across Telangana.
Chief of the Telangana Congress A. Revanth Reddy went to Kamareddy where he is taking on Chief Minister KCR and urged the people to liberate Telangana from KCR’s clutches. ‘Maarpu Kaavali Congress Raavali’ (Change needed Congress should come) was the main slogan of Mr. Reddy in most of his meetings. Giving one chance to Congress that gave Telangana as you have already given two chances to KCR was the theme of Congress show.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded the Telangana campaign with a massive roadshow in Hyderabad on Monday night, it was the turn of other national leaders and local BJP leaders — State unit president G. Kishan Reddy and Rajya Sabha member K. Lakshman — to end the campaign on Tuesday. Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis too joined the campaign to woo the voters of Maharastrian origin.
Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi together joined the roadshow in Malkajgiri to end their campaign after addressing a couple of public meetings in the districts.
KCR’s shows were supplemented by his son and Minister for IT K. T. Rama Rao who held an impressive roadshow in Kamareddy countering the non-local factor terming KCR as a local for the entire Telangana. KCR’s daughter and MLC Kavitha Kalvakuntla confined herself to Nizamabad and Karimnagar districts this time.
