By IANS,
Kolkata: Campaigning for the third round of the six-phase West Bengal assembly elections ended Monday, as the state geared up for polling in 75 constituencies spread across three districts Wednesday.
Campaigning in the three districts — Kolkata, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas – came to an end at 5 p.m.
Leading political personalities like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress stalwart and union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley campaigned for their party candidates.
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Prakash Karat, CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechuri, Chief Minister and CPI-M leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary A.B. Bardhan and Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati also canvassed for votes.
Personal attacks overshadowed policies and programmes of political parties during the campaign.
The fate of 480 candidates, including Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, state Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta, Leader of Opposition in assembly and Trinamool Congress leader Partha Chatterjee, Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) secretary general Amit Mitra, state ministers Abdur Rezzak Mollah and Kanti Ganguly, will be decided Wednesday.
The CPI-M is contesting in 61 constituencies, the CPI three, the Trinamool 70, the Congress five, Forward Bloc seven, the BJP 75, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) three and the BSP 51 constituencies.
Total number of eligible voters for the third phase of elections is 14,419,669.
Polls for the 294-member assembly, which started April 18, will end May 10. The counting of votes will take place May 13.