Last day of campaigning for phase I of Lok Sabha polls

It's the last day of campaigning today for the first phase of polling on April 16 and making a last ditch effort to reach out to undecided voters are Sonia Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab where he will be holding his first rally.

Priyanka Gandhi in Amethi, Mayawati in Jaipur and Narendra Modi in north and central Gujarat.

Rahul's rally will be at Talwandi Sabo where Raninder Singh, son of Captain Amarinder Singh is facing a tough fight from the Badal family.

In the first phase, polling will be held in 17 states. One-twenty four of the 543 seats in Parliament will be decided in this phase.

The states going to the polls in the first phase include, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and some seats in Orissa in the east; Jammu and Kashmir, 16 seats in Uttar Pradesh, 13 in Bihar, 6 in Jharkhand in north India; 13 seats in Maharashtra and Chattisgarh in the west and Andhra Pradesh, Kerala Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep in the south.

Some of the key candidates whose fates will be decided in the first phase are:

Bihar (Saran): RJD chief and Union Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav

Maharashtra (Bhandara-Gondiya): Praful Patel (NCP), MOS for Civil Aviation

Uttar Pradesh (Varanasi): Dr Murli Manohar Joshi (BJP), Former BJP President and former Union Human Resource Minister

Andhra Pradesh (Mahbubnagar): K Chandrasekhar Rao (TRS), President of TRS & Former Cabinet minister

Kerala (Thiruvananthapuram): Shashi Tharoor (Congress), Former UN Undersecretary General

Andhra Pradesh (Srikakulam): Yerran Naidu ( TDP), Sitting MP since 1996 , Former Union Cabinet minister and Parliamentary Party leader