Campaign ends for Phase-I of Lok Sabha polls

Curtains came down on Tuesday on an acrimonious campaign in 124 constituencies in 17 states for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls on April 16, with electioneering marked by a bitter war of words between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bharatiya Janata Party's senior leader L K Advani.

Rashtriya Janata Dal's Lalu Prasad, BJP's Murli Manohar Joshi, Telangana Rashtra Samiti's K Chandrasekhar Rao, Congress' Renuka Chowdhury, actress Vijayasanthi, NTR's daughter D Purandeswari and former union minister B Dattatreya are among the prominent names seeking election to the lower house of Parliament in the first phase.

While all 20 seats in Kerala and two in Meghalaya would go to polls in a single phase on Thursday, polling would also be held in parts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir.

The lone seats in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Mizoram and Nagaland would go to polls on Thursday.

Prominent campaigners included Congress president Sonia Gandhi, BJP prime minister hopeful L K Advani, Congress youth icons Rahul and Priyanka, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Left party leaders Prakash Karat and A B Bardhan.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is recovering from a heart by-pass surgery in January, lent his bit to the Congress campaign when he went to Kerala and then to Mumbai.