Click to play videoMumbai: More than 6,500 candidates in the fray for the Maharashtra Assembly elections tried their best to woo voters before the campaign deadline of 1700 hours IST on Sunday.
The last day of campaigning saw lots of colour and some violence too. A candidate in Pune was fired at and another one in Solapur was attacked.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in Mumbai to address his party workers, referred to the issue of security raised by the recent Naxal attack. "If the Naxals give up violence we are ready for a dialogue,” he said.
Most of the leaders remained in their own constituencies on the last day.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said, “We plan a law for the empowerment of the poor people.”
The insider-outsider debate has made MNS chief Raj Thackeray the leader everyone loves to hate, with even senior leader Shivraj Patil firing a salvo at him.
"If he so wishes, I am ready to fight it out with him,” Patil said.
Meanwhile, the MNS chose the last day of the campaign to release its party manifesto, just an hour before the deadline.
"I was busy with campaigns and didn't have time earlier, and also had I released it earlier people would have forgotten,” MNS chief Raj Thackeray said.
With the end of campaigning, the candidates can now only wait and watch for the public verdict. The state machinery meanwhile is making final preparations to ensure a safe polling day.
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