Puducherry Assembly Election Campaign To End

Puducherry UT Assembly polls end campaigning Tuesday; 294 candidates vie for 30 seats. NDA and INDIA blocs in contest; voter awareness drives underway to boost turnout.

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Source : PTI

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Campaigning for the April 9 elections to the Assembly of the Puducherry Union territory will end on Tuesday evening as political parties, independent candidates and rebel candidates of political parties were in a last-ditch attempt to impress voters.

Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam regions of the Union Territory (UT) together have thirty seats in the Assembly.

A total of 294 candidates are in the fray. The upcoming poll is a prestige fight for the NDA and INDIA bloc.

The election authorities have launched several awareness programmes across the UT to encourage voters to turn up to booths, with an aim of boosting the poll percentage.

In the ruling NDA, the AINRC is in the race in 16 constituencies, and its ally BJP in 10, and AIADMK and LJK are in the fray for two constituencies each.

The opposition, the INDIA bloc, after a protracted seat-sharing negotiation, reached a settlement to allocate Congress 16 constituencies, and to field DMK in 13 and VCK in one (Uzhavarkarai). However, Congress candidates are contesting from 6 constituencies that were allocated to DMK, and they defied the grand old party's call to withdraw.

The fledgling Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) fielded candidates in 28 of the 30 constituencies and is backing the Neyyam Makkal Kazhagam in the remaining two constituencies (Thattanchavady and Orleanpet). 

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)