Chief Electoral Officer Bhanwar Lal has declared that all campaigning in Kadapa would come to an end at 5pm on Friday. The Election Commission (EC) also issued orders banning the distribution of voter slips by the various politicla parties in Kadapa, as the leaders would otherwise continue with their door-to-door campaigning under the pretense of distributing voter slips.
10,79,196 of the 13,28,869 voter slips have been distributed already, and the rest will be passed out on the day of the polls, stated Bhanwar Lal.
With the deadline for the completion of campaigning closing in, the contestants for the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat and the Pulivendula Assembly seat frantically intensified their efforts to woo voters.
The price of each vote is reported to have increased from Rs. 100 - Rs. 350 to Rs. 750- Rs. 1,000. This expenditure on the part of the political leaders is apart from the Rs. 2 crores-plus money, in cash and in kind, that has been seized by the Kadapa police from various regions of Kadapa since the commencement of the campaigning.
The
liberal cash flow during the campaigning has raised questions regarding the concept of 'democracy', and whether fair elections in the state are a distant dream.
With the people of Kadapa not showing any indication of favouring a particular leader over the others, the final winner of the by-polls is anybody's guess.