)
A whopping number of 3,420 nominations were filed for 119 assembly seats in 10 districts of Telangana region, and two-thirds of them were submitted just on the last day yesterday. About 457 nominations were received for 17 Lok Sabha constituencies in the region, which is going for polls on April 30.
The state election machinery, engaged in compiling the data of the nominations, failed to compile the data even after the completion of scrutiny on Thursday, as the overwhelming number of candidates chose to file their nomination papers on the last day.
"We all worked till 3 AM today to collect and present the data at one place. But the work proved to be enormous. As today meant for scrutinising the nomination papers most of the energies were focused on that job," said a senior officer in state chief electoral office.
People chose to file the nomination papers just hours before the expiry of the deadline as they got their names cleared for party tickets only at the last minute while most of them considered yesterday as an auspicious day.
A record number of 73 nominations were filed for the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency followed by 64 nominations for Secunderabad Lok Sabha, according to the data collected by the inforrmation department. The nominations received for each of the Assembly segments ranged from as low as 10 to as high as 75. The LB Nagar Assembly segment in Rangareddy district received the highest number of 75 nominations.
Among the 10 districts, Hyderabad received the highest number of 584 nomination papers for the Assembly elections followed by 548 by Ranga Reddy district. Nalgonda district stood third with 406 nominations.
Almost all the constituencies are expected to face multi-corner contests as majority parties including the Congress, the TRS and the YSR Congress are going alone in this election. Only the the TDP and the BJP have jointly fielded the candidates as a part of the pre-poll alliance between the two.
Several people who failed to secure party tickets had also filed nominations as rebel candidates in their respective constituencies though the clear picture will emerge only after the last day of the withdrawal of nomination papers.
Telangana Congress Committee president Ponnala Laxmaiah today openly appealed to the rebel candidates from his party to withdraw from the elections. A similar effort both at the party level as well as in the individual capacity by the official candidates is underway across all the political parties. Time for withdrawal of nominations is till Saturday.
