Twenty-nine candidates are in the fray for the Tiruchi Lok Sabha constituency after two Independents withdrew their nominations on Wednesday, the last day for withdrawal of nominations.
The constituency will witness a multi-cornered fight with P.Kumar of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Mu.Anbazhagan of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Sarubala R.Tondaiman of the Congress, A.M.G.Vijaykumar of the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam and S.Sridhar of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) being the leading contenders.
P.Ravi, Aam Aadmi Party, S.Natarajan, Bahujan Samaj Party, S. Mohammed Anwardeen, Samata Party, P.Jothi, Samajwadi Party, M.Karunakaran, Lok Satta, and P.Asaithambi, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation are also in the fray.
Eighteen Independents – M.Anbazhagan, P.Kumar, P.Vijayakumar, G.Dinesh Kumar, Y.Lawrence, M.Mohandass, A.Sathick Basha, M.Badusha, A.Veeramalai, Thaddaus Fernandez, M.Ashraf Ali, A.Arunachalam, J.Eswaran, S.Sundarraj, P.Palanivel, S.Srivedi, K.Balakrishnan and R.Raghavan – complete the list of the candidates.
D.Mala and A.R.Khaja Mohideen were the two Independents who withdrew their nominations on Wednesday. Later, allocation of symbols for candidates of the registered unrecognised parties and Independents were made in the presence of the candidates by District Collector and Returning Officer Jayashree Muralidharan. The exercise was supervised by Harendra Nath Bora, the General Observer for the constituency. Draw of lots was resorted to after a couple of Independent candidates sought the same symbol.
Two ballot units
Two ballot units are set to be used in each polling booth in the constituency to accommodate the 29 names of candidates. Although each of the electronic voting machines will have a single control unit, there will be two ballot units as only 16 names can be entered in a single ballot unit.
