Campaigning for the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls in eight seats of western Uttar Pradesh, where polling will be held on April 19, ended on Wednesday.

Heat wave conditions and untimely rains with thunder and lightning had affected the campaigning in this phase.

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On the last day of campaigning, the opposition INDIA bloc put up a strong show starting with a joint press conference of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav in Ghaziabad which was followed by a mega road show by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Saharanpur.

Yadav also addressed a rally in Bijnor before the end of the campaigning. In a surprise move, he skipped attending any election meetings in Muslim-dominated Rampur and Moradabad, the seats won by the SP in 2019.

On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) campaigned in a big way in western UP and its leaders addressed meetings in all the eight constituencies beginning from March-end.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had addressed rallies in Meerut and Pilibhit, while Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attended more than 20 rallies in these seats.

Meanwhile, BSP supremo Mayawati and her nephew Akash Anand addressed election meetings to garner support for their party candidates.

While the BJP advocated the slogan of “crossing 400 seats” in the country with Modi’s guarantee, the opposition, on the other hand, claimed “Constitution and democracy in threat” in BJP’s regime.

UP Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said all election campaign activities carried out by political parties ended at 6 pm on Wednesday.

During the next 48 hours, no election campaign related activities will be conducted within the constituency. The presence of outside workers and officials of all political parties in the constituency will be restricted after the end of the election campaign period and they will have to leave the constituency, he said.

“Security personnel, including central forces, have already reached the polling stations while polling personnel will reach their respective booths by Thursday night,” the officer said.

Rinwa added that there are 80 candidates in the fray for the eight Lok Sabha constituencies in the first phase. There are 73 men and seven women candidates.

“There are 1.43 crore registered voters in the first phase of polls, of which 76.23 lakh are men, 67.14 lakh women and 824 are of the third gender. There are a total of 7,693 polling stations and 14,842 polling booths,” he added.

The seats going for polls in the first phase are Saharanpur, Bijnor, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit.