R. Viswanathan, secretary, Communist Party of India (CPI), Puducherry, on Thursday filed nomination for the Puducherry Lok Sabha constituency.
Accompanied by party leaders, he submitted papers to Returning Officer S.B. Deepak Kumar at the Collectorate here. He is among seven candidates who filed their papers for the Puducherry constituency. S. Sanjivgandhi, K. Manjini, M. Chittibabu, S. Ezhilarasan, K. Ramadoss and I. Senthilkumar filed as Independents.
Mr. Chittibabu attracted the attention of onlookers by bringing coins to the tune of Rs.25,000 for depositing towards his candidature. He showed the box that contained coins of Rs.2 and Rs.10 to the onlookers before entering the Collector’s office for filing nomination. Earlier, he walked for about a half a km on Kamarajar Road carrying the coin box on his shoulder.
When the Returning Officer asked him to pay the deposit, Mr. Chittibabu gave him the box. Mr. Kumar directed the officials to count the coins. As many as 11 officials counted the coins, which reportedly took two hours. The officials then issued a receipt to Mr. Chittibabu.
On giving coins for deposit, Mr. Chittibabu said that it was not easy to popularise the candidature of Independents as they might not have the support of party cadre, money or muscle power. Hence, he chose this novel way to attract attention.
With just two more days left for filing nominations, many aspirants are expected to turn up on Friday and Saturday. Congress candidate V. Narayanasamy and All India N. R. Congress candidate R. Radhakrishnan would file their papers on Saturday.
