RAIN NO BAR HERE: Cantonment MLA G. Sayanna campaigning for the TDP-supported candidate in Rasoolpura on Friday. Photo: SATISH H.

HYDERABAD: The political din and bustle that gave the Secunderabad Cantonment a colourful dimension for nearly a month drew to a soggy, whimpering close at 5 p.m. on Friday as candidates, soaked to skin in the daylong showers, made a final pitch.

However, it was not Friday's rain that made the candidates tense. Concerns over possibilities of a low voter turnout in case of persistent rains on Sunday were what worried them more.

Fervent prayers

"I'm sure I can win if at least 16,000 of the 23,000-plus voters here cast their votes. My only prayer is that the rains stay away for just one day on Sunday," is what Ward One's Jampanna Pratap had to say.

Earlier in the day, with the rains refusing to relent, grandiose plans of massive rallies fell flat. Desperate candidates, however, tried to whip up some enthusiasm and made a few rounds of their wards, wading through waterlogged areas and pointing out how they could make a difference to the situation if they won.

Even gala processions with top political leaders, which had been planned in the beginning of the campaigning, had to be shelved. Telugu Desam-supported candidates, who made last ditch efforts to get at least T. Devender Goud if not party supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu, saw only the Cantonment MLA G. Sayanna ready to walk the soaked mile along with them.

Congress-supported candidates like J. Pratap, M. Amarender Reddy, P. Gowri Shanker and their ilk had to forget ideas of getting a minister to campaign with them.

Sayanna, who visited localities around Rasoolpura, Bowenpally and Balamrai, pointed out overflowing nalas to the residents and said that the top priority of his party-supported candidates would be to get moving the long-pending plans of underground drainage and storm water drains, if they were elected.

With curtains down on the pleading pageant, it is now over to the 1,91,536 voters from seven wards of the Cantonment, who will have their fingers stained with the purple ink after nine years, to decide the fate of 105 candidates on Sunday.

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