Battleline was drawn today in Haryana as 230 candidates were left in fray after the deadline ended for withdrawal of nominations for the 10 Lok Sabha seats where polling will be held on April 10.
Around 1.55 crore voters, including 71 lakh women, are eligible to cast their votes at 16,129 polling stations, including 11,644 in rural areas.
Twenty one candidates today withdrew their nominations papers thus leaving 230 candidates in the fray, Haryana's Chief Electoral Officer, Shrikant Walgad said.
Of the 10 Lok Sabha seats, Congress had won nine and the Haryana Janhit Congress one - Hisar seat in the 2009 election.
Walgad said that a highest number of 41 candidates were in fray from Hisar, 14 from Ambala Lok Sabha, 26 from Bhiwani-Mahendergarh, 27 from Faridabad, 22 from Gurgaon, 23 from Karnal, 22 from Kurukshetra, 14 from Rohtak, 18 from Sirsa and 23 from Sonipat Lok Sabha seat.
The main contestants include Congress' Deepinder Hooda, Naveen Jindal, Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar, Shruti Choudhry, Arvind Sharma and Avtar Singh Bhadana, all seeking re-election from their respective constituencies of Rohtak, Kurukshetra, Sirsa (SC), Bhiwani-Mahendergarh, Karnal and Faridabad.
From Sonipat, Congress has fielded its Gohana MLA Jagbir Singh Malik after party's sitting MP Jitender Malik opted out.
From Hisar, Haryana Janhit Congress chief Kuldeep Bishnoi is seeking re-election, while from Gurgaon, Rao Inderjit Singh, who quit Congress to join BJP, and Aam Aadmi Party's Yogendra Yadav are among those in the race.
Walgad said the nomination of 48 candidates had been rejected during the scrutiny of nomination papers on March 24.
He said that among those who withdrew nominations, two candidates each did so from Ambala, Gurgaon, Rohtak and Sirsa. Similarly, one candidate withdrew his nomination from Bhiwani and three each from Hisar, Karnal, Kurukshetra and Sonipat.
He said that notices have been served to all candidates who had violated Model Code of Conduct and action is being taken on all such complaints by the Commission.
The Lok Sabha polls are being fought by main opposition INLD independently after its efforts for a tie-up with BJP failed.
Moreover, INLD chief and former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala and his MLA son Ajay Singh Chautala are behind the bars in connection with a 14-year-old teachers' recruitment scam.
INLD has, however, declared that it will back Narendra Modi in the prime ministerial race.
The ruling Congress finds itself battling 10 years of anti-incumbency while the BJP is fighting the polls in alliance with Kuldeep Bishnoi headed HJC.
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has termed the Lok Sabha polls as a semi-final before the October elections to the state Assembly.
This time Aam Aadmi Party is also likely to make an impact in the state's politics. The party is fighting the polls on its own. BSP, Trinamool Congress, the Left parties and a few Independents are also in the fray.
