Tuesday, being the final day for filing nomination papers to contest the Assembly elections, saw a rush in several constituencies where the returning officers issued tokens to candidates who came before the deadline.
More than 3,000 nomination papers have been filed since the window opened on April 17.
According to Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar, the process of tallying the numbers was getting delayed since in several constituencies tokens had been issued. Mr. Kumar said tabulation of figures was still on as filing of nominations had taken place till late on Tuesday.
Sources said tokens were issued to candidates before 3 p.m. — the deadline for filing nominations. Nomination papers were accepted past the deadline from those who had been issued tokens. Sources said that while the number of nomination papers was more than 3,000, the number candidates was more than 2,000 as many candidates had filed multiple sets, some even four to six sets.
According to sources, about 80 political parties are taking part in the elections. Interestingly, at least five candidates are in the age group of 81 to 90 while at least 130 candidates are in the age group of 25 to 30. A majority are in the age group of 40 to 50.
Meanwhile, Congress candidate N.A. Haris, two-time MLA for Shantinagar whose nomination had been kept pending till Sunday, declared his and his family’s assets to be worth ₹190.22 crore, a jump of 42% from ₹133.76 crore he had declared in 2013. His liabilities have increased by 210.33% — from ₹3 crore in 2013 to ₹9.21 crore now.
Two balloting units
As of now, polling booths in at least 60 constituencies may have more than one balloting unit of the electronic voting machine. According to Mr. Kumar, in 60 constituencies the number of candidates in the fray as of now is more than 15.
“We need to have a second balloting unit where there are more than 15 candidates since one unit will have space for 15 names plus for the NOTA option. The number of such constituencies may reduce after the withdrawal of nominations,” he said, and added that number of constituencies which went with two balloting units in the 2013 Assembly elections was 30.
