The police today recovered the bullet-ridden body of Dr Pannalal Oswal, BJP candidate for the Dhubri parliamentary constituency, from a paddy field near Bilasipara in Dhubri district five days after he was abducted.

Assam police director-general P V Sumant said the Bagaribari police station in the district received information from some local people that a body was lying in a paddy field in the morning. On reaching the spot, the police found the body was Oswal's.

The October 3 poll for Dhubri constituency has been adjourned and a new date will be announced by the Election Commission after receiving the returning officer's report.

Oswal, a former president of the Dhubri district body of the BJP, who was contesting for the third time, was abductedfrom near Bilasipara on Sunday afternoon by three unidentified gunmen. Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta had said the abductors belonged to the ULFA.

Mahanta had been carrying on some negotiations with the ULFA over the latter's demand for the payment of Rs five crore, the DGP also stated.According to the post-mortem report, Oswal was killed sometime before day-break. There were three bullet injuries on his head.

Meanwhile, following large-scale killings in mine blasts in the previous phase in Bihar, mine sweepers were being used in volatile constituencies including Patna, Ara, Buxar, Nalanda and Barh in the polling tomorrow.But its clear that of all States, Bihar is turning out to be the EC's bug-bear. Massive security arrangements have been made in the state, which witnessed over 30 killings during the last phase of polling. The Union Home Ministry has rushed additional Central forces to Bihar. They now stand augmented to 147 companies (from 130 companies deployed in the last phase).

Out of the19 constituencies here, 13 have been bracketed as sensitive and in most of these, Central forces have carried out flag-march to instil confidence among the people. Deputy EC Subas Pani told the New Delhi media that all possible steps have been taken for tomorrow's polling. ``The Commission is closely monitoring the arrangements in Bihar and elsewhere,'' he held. Commenting upon reports about the killing of the BJP candidate for Dhubri Lok Sabha seat in Assam, Pani said the EC was awaiting formal report from the returning officer and subsequently a new date for polling will be announced. Later, however, official sources said the polling had been adjourned to a later date. Pani stressed that the Commission would do its utmost to ensure free and fair elections in Bihar.

In UP, polling will be held in 24 constituencies, in the State. According to UP CEO Noor Mohammed, the highest number of 22 candidates were in the fray for Muzaffarnagar seat while the lowest, eight, were for Tehri Garhwal. Ten UP districtsidentified as hyper-sensitive are Bareilly, Budaon, Shahjahanpur, Moradabad, Jyotibaphule Nagar, Rampur, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar.