High decibel campaign comes to end in Telangana

Telangana has 3,17,17,389 registered voters in 119 constituencies, where a total of 2,290 candidates are in the fray

Hyderabad: The most high profile and frenzied, and perhaps one of the longest campaigns Telangana has ever witnessed in its 10 years of existence came to an end on Tuesday, with the State to head to the polling booth on Thursday.

The final day of campaigning saw Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao spearheading the poll pitch of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), with his 95th and 96th Praja Ashirwada Sabhas at Warangal and Gajwel, while top brass of the Congress and the BJP too addressed election rallies and participated in roadshows across the State.

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Motorcycle rallies, roadshows, public meetings and door-to-door canvassing continued till evening as candidates and their parties pushed themselves for the last attempt to convince voters that they were the best.

The BRS, which bagged 88 seats in the 119-member Assembly in 2018, is seeking a third consecutive term in power in the country’s youngest State while both the Congress and the BJP are desperate to wrest power. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and TPCC president A Revanth Reddy concluded their campaigns with a roadshow in Malkajgiri

BRS working president KT Rama Rao, who took out a roadshow in Kamareddy in the morning, headed to his constituency of Sircilla later, addressed a press conference and took out yet another roadshow, his 70th one in the last 60 days, before winding up his campaign. Finance Minister T Harish Rao, who was seen crisscrossing the State campaigning for the party, wound up his campaign in Siddipet, from where he is seeking a record seventh consecutive win.

The campaign, which saw the BRS hitting the road running at least three months ahead of the others, saw the entire top brass of the Congress and the BJP descending on Telangana to attack K Chandrashekhar Rao, who is in line for a rare hat-trick victory of a Chief Minister in South India.

For the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda, union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitish Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Anurag Singh Thakur, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyothi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Assam Chief Minister Hemant Biswa Sarma, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde among others campaigned.

AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi and his brother Akbaruddin Owaisi led the AIMIM’s campaign while BSP leader Mayawati addressed a few public meetings in support of her party candidates.

The State has 3,17,17,389 registered voters in 119 constituencies, where a total of 2,290 candidates are in the fray.