India's fourth round of LS polls Thursday

New Delhi, May 6 (PTI) India's Lok Sabha polls will
Thursday enter its fourth and penultimate phase for electing
85 Members of Parliament and the contenders include Bharatiya
Janata Party President Rajnath Singh and Congress' Pranab
Mukherjee.

As many as 9.46 crore people are eligible to vote in this
phase that will see polling in eight states and union
territories, including Delhi.

Polling would commence at 0700 hrs (IST) and close at
1700 hrs in 1.29 lakh booths, which would be manned by over
six lakh election officials.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav (Mainpuri) and
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad (Pataliputra),
National Conference's Farooq Abdullah (Srinagar), Congress'
Kapil Sibal (Chandni Chowk), Sachin Pilot (Ajmer), Shekhar
Suman (Patna Saheb), Ajay Maken (New Delhi), BJP's Shatrughan
Sinha (Patna Saheb), HJC's Bhajan Lal (Hisar) and RLD's Ajit
Singh (Baghpat) are among the prominent candidates in this
phase.

Since the polls began on April 16, election has been
completed to 372 seats of the 545-member Lok Sabha. Polls are
held only to 543 seats, as two members are nominated from the
Anglo-Indian community.

Polling to all the 25 seats in Rajasthan, 10 in Haryana
and seven in Delhi will be completed at one go. Elections will
also be held to three seats in Bihar, one in Jammu and
Kashmir, four in Punjab, 18 in Uttar Pradesh and 17 in West
Bengal.

Rajnath Singh is contesting his first LS polls from
Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat, while Mukherjee is fighting his
second from Jangipur.

Lalu Prasad, who has already entered polls from the Saran
Lok Sabha seat, is hedging his bets by contesting from
Pataliputra. Former BJP strongman Kalyan Singh is fighting as
an independent with the support of Samajwadi Party from Etah.

The build-up to this phase of polls was marked by hectic
electioneering, with star campaigners of the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA), the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA) and the Third Front traversing through the country to
tell voters why the other alliance should not be elected,
while actively sending out feelers to one another for
post-poll tie-ups.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Tuesday said:
"After elections, all options are open.... We have always been
open to post-poll alliances".

He appeared to reach out to Nitish Kumar, whose Janata
Dal (United) is an NDA constituent, and Chandrababu Naidu,
whose Telugu Desam Party (TDP) is part of the Third Front. He
also expressed the hope that Left parties would back Manmohan
Singh as Prime Minister. The Left as well as Nitish promptly
said thanks, but no thanks.

The Congress has been working overtime to defend Delhi,
which has been under the party's rule for 11 years now,
although it was once known as a BJP fort.

In neighbouring Haryana, 210 candidates, including former
chief minister Bhajan Lal, industrialist Navin Jindal and
former cricketer Chetan Chauhan, are in the fray for 10 seats.

Candidates are facing more than just genuine competition
in some constituencies, including Hisar, where Bhajan Lal is
up against a namesake.

Campaigning for this phase was equally heated, with rival
camps stepping up the attack on one another.

Rahul Gandhi was unforgiving in his criticism of BJP's
PM hopeful L K Advani, saying the BJP's 'Iron Man' should have
resigned as the Home Minister once he realised that a cabinet
colleague of his had escorted terrorists in return for the
release of hostages in Kandahar.

The BJP, too, continued its criticism of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, calling him "weak".

"If the Prime Minister only wants to clear files while
the political decisions are taken by Sonia Gandhi, then I am
afraid what we need is a cabinet secretary and not a Prime
Minister," BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley said.

In the midst of the campaign heat, the Prime Minister too
launched an attack on the Left, which withdrew support to the
UPA over the civil nuclear deal with the US, saying that its
policies are "retrograde" and "lack far-sightedness".

The issue of Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi's
name being dropped from CBI's most wanted list in connection
with the Bofors scam spilled over into this round of
campaigning as well, but Rahul Gandhi said he was far from
embarrassed by the development and chose to call it a "dead"
issue.

As many as 12,048 villages and hamlets in eight states
have been identified as prone to vulnerable to intimidation of
voters in the fourth phase.

In Rajasthan, two choppers have been deployed with RAC
jawans for aerial surveillance, besides 250 companies of CRPF
and RAC personnel.

The Election Commission said 60,405 people have been
specifically identified are trouble makers across the states
going to polls.

In all 1,315 candidates including 119 women are in the
fray for the 85 Lok Sabha seats in the fourth phase, Deputy
Election Commissioner R Balakrishnan said.

Though the polling would be held from 0700 hrs to 1700
hrs, four assembly segments -- Islampur and Hilsa in Nalanda
Parliamentary constituency and Masauri and Paliganj in
Patliputra Lok Sabha constituency -- in Bihar would see voting
close at 1500 hrs, he said. PTI TEAM