The mid-term polls saw the Sensex shedding 4.71 per cent or 161.32 points to close at 3,245.27 points. Intra-day the index fluctuated in the band of 3,239.47 to 3,322.89 points, the intra-day's low and high respectively. A wave of selling on the NSE saw the S&P CNX Nifty index shed 50.7 points or 5.16 per cent to close at 939.35 points. Among the Sensex representatives over 80 per cent of the stocks were locked at the lower end of the price filter on the BSE.

In the GDR markets the Skindia GDR index shed 3.58 per cent to trade at 589.25 points during mid-session on the London Stock Exchange on Monday.Interestingly, despite the GDR markets also registering a steep decline, pivotals like Reliance, ITC and MTNL continue to be traded at a huge premium over its underlying stock price. While Reliance traded at a premium of 20.2 per cent at $ 6.74, MTNL was traded at a huge premium of 35.15 per cent at $ 8.65 and ITC at $ 25.88 was traded at a premium of 24.71 per cent.

While a section of the brokers were of the opinion that today's correction provided a new bottom for the index, the issue on whether the elections would be conducted before or after the monsoons continued to disturb broking community at large.

"Technically the index is poised to make a new bottom at 3,050 levels. The FIIs and institutional players have not yet started selling. However, if they turn net sellers on account of the political tensions we would face a considerable erosion in the index values," said BSE director, Ramesh M Damani.

The huge sell off witnessed on the local bourses according to market pundits was purely a panic reaction on the confusion on the elections date. "Monday was the last day of the trading cycle on the NSE on account of the holiday on Tuesday. This coupled with the political factors led to operator driven sell off at the bourses," explained a veteran BSE broker in the light of the considerable fall in the net outstanding on the BSE.

On the BSE, the net outstanding positions have fallen below Rs 1,000 crore. While the fall has also been triggered on account of the steep depreciation in the stock prices, huge sell off at 3,500 levels is also attributed as an important reason for the net positions to dip to around Rs 900 crore levels on Monday.

Interestingly, despite 5-7 heavy weight index based stocks attracting backwardation on Saturday these stocks failed to register short covering as expected by the brokers. On Saturday, stocks like HLL, ITC, Reliance, Colgate, ACC, Zee Telefilms and Brittannia attracted backwardation charges mirroring the rise in the short positions at the counters. However, in the absence of short covering the stocks continued to be hammered down to new lows on the bourses.

While among the pivotals, ACC, Tata Tea, Tisco, SBI, Telco, Pentafour Software, Satyam Computers and Digital Equipments were locked at the lower end of the price band on BSE, info-tech and pharma counters also witnessed a similar fate.

According to market sources, UTI was rumoured to have made its presence felt at the counters of Burroughs Welcome, Smithkline Pharma and Sierra Optima. However, brokers were surprised at the small buy orders placed by India's largest mutual fund. Sources hinted that UTI placed buy orders to the tune of 300-500 shares at these counters.

Among the FIIs, James Capel reported two cross deals at the counters of Wipro and Zee Telefilms. Interestingly, Kotak Securities reported a huge cross deal of 1 lakh units at the counter of GIC R91CBS on the BSE.