Will the new moon cast its shadow?

With just three more days to go for filing of nominations for the local bodies polls, all eyes will be on those who go ahead and do that on Monday.

Because Monday is an Amavasi day, considered inauspicious for commencing any major activity.The seat-sharing talks are expected to be completed by Sunday night and the coalitions are expected to come out with their first lists by Monday, giving enough time for prospective candidates to file nominations the same day. However, the responses from various leaders were almost the same — the individual candidates will decide to file their nominations on days they choose.

“We have two more days left. So it is not necessary to file on Monday itself,” was the response from a BJP leader who did not want to be named.

“Why should we go into such issues? Let the candidates decide the date and time. We have two more days to file,” said a senior leader of the Congress.

The response from the CPI(M) leader too was not different: “Communists don’t have anything to do with Amavasi. But if anyone does not want to file on Monday, they still have two more days left,” said a CPI(M) leader.If a majority of candidates are not ready to take a chance, the electoral officers are going to have a tough time meeting the heavy rush for filing of nominations on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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Worrying factor

Mavericks on social media are the latest headache for mainstream political parties.

Whether engineered by rival parties or cyber pranksters, parties now have to tackle posts of self-declared candidates on Facebook and WhatsApp. Incidentally, many such posts even have the party symbol for good measure.

In one instance, a prankster declared his candidature saying he is an IUML candidate in Thamarassery grama panchayat in Kozhikode district.

Local IUML leaders had to clarify that the post was fake. They also had to threaten legal action to thwart more such menaces.

On the flip side, this can also be a worry for parties doing social media campaigns for their candidates. The voters cannot often tell a genuine post from a fake one.