Friday, November 11 2005 19:30 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Curtain came down this evening (November 11, 2005) on a spirited campaign for the third and penultimate phase of Bihar assembly election in 57 constituencies on November 13 with the major contenders for power making state's backwardness a major electoral plank.

The electoral fate of several heavyweights, including state RJD President Abdul Bari Siddiqui, his JD(U) counterpart Bijendra Prasad Yadav and state Samajwadi Party Chief Deonath Yadav, besides a host of ministers of erstwhile Rabri Devi government is to be decided in this phase in which 494 candidates are in the fray.

After an initial lull due to Ramzan, Diwali and Chhath festivals, campaigning started full throttle with a galaxy of top politicians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, going around stumping for candidates of their parties.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, AICC General Secretary and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and union ministers Meira Kumar and Subodh Kant Sahay lent a helping hand to RJD boss Lalu Prasad, who spearheaded the RJD-led Secular Democratic Front's campaign.

Though former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee could not attend the NDA's rally scheduled for November 10 at Darbhanga on account of ill health, BJP President L K Advani, NDA Convenor and JD(U) President George Fernandes, party's Parliamentary Board Chairman Sharad Yadav, stormy BJP leader and former MP Chief Minister Uma Bharti, party General Secretaries Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan pitched in for the alliance.

Though more than anything else Bihar's development, rather lack of it, figured prominently during the campaign, the Volcker committee report on Iraqi oil payoffs allegedly involving former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and Congress party also had its echo during electioneering.

The two major contenders for power--SDF and NDA--indulged in the blame game over Bihar's non-development. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and RJD boss Lalu Prasad charged the erstwhile Atal Bihari Vajpayee government with having neglected Bihar, BJP President Advani shot back with accusations against successive Congress regimes of giving the state a short shrift.

Supreme Court's ruling holding dissolution of the Bihar assembly as unconstitutional also gave the NDA a stick to beat the SDF with.

LJP President Ram Vilas Paswan, ploughing a separate furrow with CPI, actively campaigned with leftist party's General Secretary A B Bardhan.

Samajwadi Party leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, seeking to make a dent into the Muslim-Yadav vote bank of RJD, campaigned for his party and so did General Secretary Amar Singh and film actress-turned-politician Jaya Pradha, who brought with her the glamour of the tinsel town in the campaign shorn of Bollywood glitz, as Bihar babu Shatrughan Sinha keeping away from campaign.

An electorate of 1,17,88,947 are eligible to vote to choo se their representatives from a field of 494 candidates, includin state RJD Chief Abdul Bari Siddiqui (Bahera), his JD(u) counterpart Bijendra Yadav (Supaul) and state SP Chief Deonath Yadav (Phulparas).