Curtains come down on Chamundeswari by poll campiagning

Mysore, Dec 2 (UNI) The no-holds-barred election campaign undertaken by major parties for the December 4 Chamundeswari Assembly by-election ended here this evening, without any major violence.

Though the high-voltage campaign witnessed a multitude of verbal attacks and counter attacks, the entire process concluded with no major violent incidents.

Major parties, particularly the Congress, JD(S) and BJP, had brought all the party top guns to the constituency for campaigning.

They had visited almost all the villages in the constituency.

Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer S Selva Kumar told UNI here that as per the Election Commission's exclusive direction for this bypoll, all political leaders, activists and workers who had come to the constituency for electioneering should leave the place, with campaigning drawing to a close. Police and other officials have been asked to keep a watch on all community halls, samudaya bhavans, marriage halls, hotels, guest houses and initiate action against 'unauthorised persons' found in the area.

State Chief Electoral Officer Ramaseshan was camping in the city along with Election Observer Raymond Peter, Poll Expenditure Observer Pramod Kumar, Additional Observer Anand Singh and the Deputy Commissioner to supervise the election process.

JD(S) leaders, led by party President H D Deve Gowda and state Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, and BJP leader and state Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa camped in the city until today and strained every nerve to canvass votes for their consensus candidate Shivabasappa.

The Congress camp saw a number of Union Ministers M H Ambareesh, Muniyappa, M V Rajashekharan and Oscar Fernandez, Rajya Sabha Vice-Chairman Rehman Khan, KPCC chief Mallikarjuna Kharge, former Chief Ministers N Dharam Singh and M Veerappa Moily, and almost all former ministers hitting the campaign trail for over ten days for their candidate - former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

Former state Chief Minister and Samajawadi Party State chief S Bangarappa also camped in the constituency to seek votes for party candidate B Karunakar.

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