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Thiruvananthapuram, May 1 (UNI) Campaigning for the third and final phase polls to the 15 constituencies in Kannur and Kasargode districts in Kerala came to an end this evening.

In this phase, eighty five candidates including CPI(M) state secretariat member Kodeyeri Balakrishnan, Congress (S) president Kadanappally Ramachandran and former Minister K Sudhakaran are in the fray.

There are about 24,01,180 voters in the two districts and the polling is on May three.

Known as a left bastion, the Congress-led United Democratic Front has put up a brave fight to the last minute. Though the UDF had a clean sweep in the 2001 assembly elections in the other parts of the state, these two districts had stood by the LDF. The LDF had bagged 10 out of the 15 seats.

The electioneering in the districts gained added momentum with national-level leaders, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, AICC chief Sonia Gandhi, CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat and BJP president Rajnath Singh addressing poll meetings.

In Kannur, which is considered to be a politically volatile district, a total of 9,000 police personnel, including 15 companies from Haryana, Rajasthan and Karnataka, have been deployed.

Besides this, around 600 digital cameras had been installed in selected booths in the district as per the instructions from the Election Commission and each polling station, would be manned by four polling officials, said Kannur collector K S Srnivas, who is also the district Electoral Officer.

Of the available 1,000 digital cameras, 600 alone would be installed for the first time in most sensitive polling booths in Kannur district, while the rest in neighbouring Kasaragod to monitor poll irregularities, he said.

All the 1,477 polling booths in the two districts were considered to be 'sensitive' while 232 booths were classified as ''vulnerable''.

Though the fight is mainly between the UDF and the LDF, the BJP has fielded candidates in all the seats.

The first phase of elections was on April 22 and the next phase on April 29. The counting of votes would be on May 11.

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