ISLAMABAD -- The campaign for the May 11 parliamentary elections in Pakistanis on the final stretch as major parties are slugging it out while Taliban militants continued their reign of terror in their bid to disrupt the electoral process.

For the month of April alone, 118 were killed and 377 were injured in 29 bomb attacks across Pakistan.

As a cooling off period, the Election Commission of Pakistan said that election campaign will be stopped 48 hours before the polling, or just a few hours from now.

Earlier, the Taliban announced that they will target only the rallies of the three major liberal parties. Lately, however, they also attacked election gatherings of Islamic parties.

Elections for 342 National Assembly seats and 728 four provincial assembly seats will be held on the same day on Saturday.

The Election Commission's data show that over 20,000 candidates are vying for National Assembly and provincial assembly seats. There are a total of 86,162,639 registered voters including 37,548,676 female voters.

Several dozen political and religious parties are taking part in the elections. However, the fight will be mainly among the three major parties -- Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP) of President Asif Ali Zaradri, Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) led by former Prime Minister Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) or Justice Movement of cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan.

Several other influential political, regional parties and nationalist groups are also on the running and have their presence felt but only in limited areas. They include Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Awami National Party (ANP), PML-Q, Jamiat ulema-e- Islam (JUI-F), Jamaat-e-Islami and some other nationalist groups.

Political watchers said the real fight will be among the three parties for the 183 general National Assembly seats in the eastern Punjab province which will be the center of the main political battle.

The PML-N and PTI top leaders focused on Punjab as this province will determine which party will reach the corridors of power.

Several recent survey conducted by international and local panels put PNL-N ahead of the PTI and PPP in Punjab while PPP will be in a sound position in southern Sindh province, which has 75 seats of the National Assembly, or Lower House of the parliament.

MQM, which mainly represents the Urdu-speaking community, has a strong base in the port city of Karachi and few urban areas of Sindh of which Karachi is the capital. Political observers believe that the MQM may win majority of the Karachi seats as it had done in the 2008 elections.

In northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, besides the three major parties, the ANP, the JUI-F and Jamaat-e-Islami are also likely to show good results in some areas. This province has 43 National Assembly seats.

Nationalist groups, which boycotted the 2008 elections in protest against the rule of then President Pervez Musharraf, and JUI-F are set to win more seats in southwestern Balochistan province. Balochistan has 17 National Assembly seats.

There are 12 National Assembly seats where the tough contest is likely among the religious parties, PTI and independent candidates.

The PML-N is thought to be in sound position on two National Assembly seats in the capital Islamabad. The PML, which had won both seats in the 2008 elections, will face a serious challenge from the PTI.

It is also believed that a split mandate could likely emerge from the elections and the single largest party will need support of other parties to form a coalition government.