Election 2012: These men are back with a BANG!

Rediff.com brings you some insights into the lives of the four men who are all ready for an encore performance in the chief minister's post

• Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh is all set to complete a hat trick. He has led the Congress back to power for the third consecutive time. Singh had won the state elections in 2002 and 2007.

• He was the first CM to have completed an entire-five-year term in Manipur.

• Singh is credited with bringing political stability to the troubled state.

• He has been criticised for his failure to get the Armed Forces Special Powers Act removed from Manipur. The army has often been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings in the state.

• Singh is considered to be close to the Congress top brass in Delhi.

• According to the affidavit filed before the Election Commission, Singh has assets worth only Rs 6.09 lakh.

• Singh's residence was attacked by the proscribed People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak in November 2006. Militants hurled bombs inside Singh's residential premises to protest the alleged corruption and violation of human rights in the state. Singh was in Delhi at the time of the incident.

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• Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manohar Parikkar has had several rocky stints while he was at the helm of affairs in Goa. In spite of being ousted due to a range of reasons like anti-incumbency, rebellious legislators and so on, Parikkar seems to have found his way back to the CM's chair every time.

• An alumni of IIT Bombay, he was the first IIT graduate to become the chief minister of a state.

• During the run-up to the state polls, Parikkar had vowed to take stringent measures against illegal mining and illegal casinos if he came back to power.

• In 2004, he had vowed never to step inside an INOX multiplex till he was absolved of charges that he had siphoned off money meant for the International Film Festival of India. He was cleared of the charges by the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2011.

• Speaking on the porngate controversy in Karnataka, when BJP MLAs were caught watching porn in the assembly, Parikkar had said, "They were only watching it, they were not doing anything".

• He had famously compared senior party leader L K Advani to 'rancid pickle' after the saffron party's debacle in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

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• Mulayam Singh Yadav is set to become the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, displacing bete noire Mayawati, after his Samajwadi Party won spectacularly in the 'mother of all elections'.

• He and Mayawati have been playing musical chairs with the UP CM's post since 2002. Meanwhile, UP continues to remain one of the most underdeveloped states in India, with thousands migrating to other states to look for livelihood and a better life.

• He started off as a wrestler before joining politics.

• Yadav served as the defence minister in the United Front coalition government in 1996 for two years.

• Yadav is a staunch opponent of the Women's Reservation Bill in its present form. Speaking on the women who would benefit from the Bill, he had said, "They would be the women youth would whistle at".

• His party had made headlines when it had opposed the use of English and computers. In an opportunistic U-turn, the SP promised tablet computers to students as party of its pre-poll sops.

• Yadav has been criticised for inducting several criminals-turned-politicians into his party.

• He had also promised government jobs for rape victims during his campaign, only to hastily retract the insensitive comment later.

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• Forty one years after he became the chief minister of Punjab for the first time, Parkash Singh Badal is set to take on the top post once again.

• This will be his fifth stint as the Punjab CM.

• He has also served as the Union minister of agriculture and irrigation in the central government under the leadership of then prime minister Morarji Desai.

• This is the first time in the history of Punjab that a party has beaten the anti-incumbency wave to come back to power.

• While his party Shiromani Akali Dal claims that he is 84 years old, his detractors claim that he is well over 90!

• He was imprisoned during the Emergency under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act.

• His son Sukhbir Singh Badal is currently the deputy chief minister and the president of the SAD.

• Badal had started his political career by being elected the sarpanch of his village panchayat.

• He had scored major brownie points in the agrarian state by pledging to provide free electricity and water to farmers.