Gujarat polls: High-octane campaigning for first phase ends, voting on Dec 1

From powerpacked rallies and roadshows by top leaders of the ruling BJP and other political parties to freebies promises and allegations and counterallegations on each other the highoctane campaigning for the first phase of the Gujarat Assembly elections ended on TuesdayVoting for 89 seats spread across 19 districts of Kutch Saurashtra and South Gujarat will be held on ThursdayThe campaigning ended at 5 pm on Tuesday ahead of the first phase of pollingCampaigning for first phase Gujarat assembly elections has ended All arrangements have been made for election and training has been provided to polling staff Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer CEO P Bharathi told ANIAlso Read Gujarat elections 2022 GenNext rekindling Porbandarrsquos gory pastPrime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah held rallies and roadshows in the state as the BJP seeks a record seventh term in officeBJP chief JP Nadda Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh Himachal Pradesh Assam Goa Union Ministers Smriti Irani Mansukh Mandaviya Parshottam Rupala Ravishankar Prasad Piyush Goyal Nitin Gadkari also campaigned during the first phase of electionsBJP Yuva Morcha president Tejasvi Surya and leaders Manoj Tiwari and Ravi Kishan also held rallies to garner support for the party candidatesCongress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot were among the prominent campaigners of the party Party leader Rahul Gandhi addressed two rallies in the stateDelhi Chief Minister and AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann campaigned extensively in the state while making various promisesA total of 788 candidates are in the fray on 89 firstphase seats which include 718 male candidates and 70 female candidatesCandidates from both BJP and Congress will be contesting on all 89 seats in the first phase while AAP will contest on 88 seats A total of 39 political parties have fielded their candidatesAmong prominent candidates Gujarat Chief Minster Bhupendra Patel is contesting from Ghatlodia AAP Chief Ministerial candidate Isudan Gadhvi from Khambhaliya former Congress leader and BJP candidate Hardik Patel from Viramgam former Congress leader and now BJP candidate Alpesh Thakor from Gandhinagar SouthAAP state president Gopal Italia is contesting from Katargam constituency Gujarat Home Minister State Harsh Sanghavi from Majura Rivaba Jadeja from Jamnagar North former Gujarat minister Parshottam Solanki from Bhavnagar Rural Kunwarji Bavaliya from Jasdan Kantilal Amrutiya from Morbi and Jayesh Radadiya from JetpurFormer BJP MLA Madhu Shrivastav is contesting as an Independent from VaghodiaA total of 23976670 voters including 12433362 males 11542811 females and 497 from the third gender are eligible to vote in the first phase of Gujarat pollsThe second phase of voting will be held on December 5The counting of votes will be done on December 8 Results of the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections will also be declared on the same dayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever