MALAPPURAM: Major political parties in the district made a last- ditch attempt to woo the vibrant electorate as the electioneering process for the Lok Sabha bypoll came to a deafening halt here on Monday.
City roads, rural belts, junctions and colonies witnessed a high-octane campaign by political parties - UDF, LDF and NDA - for the April 12 bypoll. In the past one week, the three principal rivals had gone into a full-blown campaign to win Malappuram constituency.
Road shows carried out by the supporters and activists of the rival parties in the city threw the traffic out of gear for nearly an hour, as all roads were entirely taken over by the party campaigners. With the dust having settled down, and public campaigning coming to a close at 6 pm on Monday, the candidates will now go to one-day silent canvassing, also crucial in deciding the outcome.
And for the candidates, this is the critical time as they wait with bated breath first for Wednesday when the voters march to the polling booths to exercise their franchise, and then for Monday when the results will be announced.
Supporters of the parties, who beat a retreat after intensive public campaigning, said they would kick off a door-to-door canvassing in squads, and make sure they would not lose a vote.
“The last 24 hours are critical for each party. We will carry out silent campaign by going to houses in various divisions and distributing leaflets. Phone, SMS and other virtual facilities will be used on the day,” CPM district secretary P P Vasudevan said.
Treading the same path, the UDF and BJP will go all out to make sure there will not be any drain of votes. “The final day can contribute quite a lot to the results,” said Madathil Ravi, BJP’s media coordinator. The byelection, necessitated after the sudden demise of E Ahamed, will see Muslim League, CPM and BJP - the three major political forces in the state - test their ground support almost a year since the fiercely fought Assembly poll.