Campaigning hots up for first phase of polls in Gujarat

Campaigning for the Gujarat elections has entered the fast lane as tomorrow is the last day for the parties to woo voters for the first phase of state Assembly polls to be held on December 13.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi will be addressing two poll rallies today — in Siddhpur town of Patan district and near Dakor in Kheda district.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi will address rallies at 53 places simultaneously using 3-D holographic projection technology.

Apart from that, he will also be present at six poll rallies in the State today to address the masses.

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had yesterday addressed a rally in Gujarat, tomorrow Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi will address three rallies in Sanand, Jamnagar and Amreli.

The campaigning for the first phase of elections would end at 5 pm tomorrow.

For the second phase for which polling is scheduled on December 17, the campaigning would end on the evening of December 15.

Modi’s Maninagar constituency will go to the polls in the second phase.

With the elections nearing, both the ruling-BJP and the Opposition Congress have stepped up attack against each other.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the time has come to “liberate” the State from divisive politics and regretted that minorities in Gujarat were feeling “insecure“.

“The time has come to liberate Gujarat from this type of politics and to not let those people come back to power, who have been trying to get votes by dividing our society and country,” Singh said, without naming Chief Minister Narendra Modi, at a rally in the tribal town of Vansada in Navsari district.

However, rebutting the Prime Minister’s charge that minorities were feeling “insecure” in Gujarat, Chief Minister Narendra Modi accused him of playing votebank politics in the name of the minority community.

“The Prime Minister, who visited Gujarat today, is playing votebank politics in the name of the minority and majority (communities). It is sad that Prime Minister of the country cannot rise above votebank politics,” Modi said yesterday at a poll rally in Valsad town.