After scrutiny, 985 candidates in fray in Kerala, 789 in Assam: ECI

New Delhi: As many as 985 candidates in Kerala and 789 nominees in Assam are left in the fray after scrutiny of nominations for the April 9 Assembly elections concluded earlier this week, an Election Commission of India (ECI) official said on Thursday.

In Puducherry, 366 candidates were cleared after scrutiny to contest for the 30 Assembly seats, the official said in a statement, adding that the final line up may alter if any of the candidates opts to withdraw from the contest before Friday.

The last date of filing of nominations in Assam and Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry as well as bypolls in four states, going to polls on April 9, was March 23, the official added.

For the bypolls on two seats in Karnataka, 50 candidates are left in the fray.

“In Goa, three candidates will fight on one Assembly seat; in Nagaland there are seven candidates on the lone Assembly seat and in Tripura there are six nominees on one Assembly seat,” a statement said.

The scrutiny of nominations was done by the Returning Officers (ROs) in the presence of the candidates/their agents and the entire process was videographed for ensuring utmost transparency.

As per ECI instructions, the ROs drew up a list of the validly nominated candidates and displayed the list with the photographs of the candidates against their names on their notice board.

The ECI announced the schedule for the election to state Assemblies of Assam (126 seats), Kerala (140 seats) and Puducherry (30 seats) and bypolls in six states on March 15.

Meanwhile, more than 5,173 Flying squads and over 5,200 Static Surveillance Teams deployed across the poll-bound states/UT have seized, till Wednesday, with more than Rs 408.82 crore worth of illicit inducements.

“The seizures include Rs 17.44 crore in cash, liquor worth Rs 37.68 crore (16.3 lakh litres), drugs worth Rs 167.38 crore, precious metals worth Rs 23 crore and other freebies worth more than Rs 163.30 crore,” an official statement said.

The teams are tasked to ensure that the complaints are attended to within 100 minutes to keep the electoral process violence-free, intimidation-free and inducement-free.

The ECI said citizens/political parties can report model code of conduct violations using the C-Vigil Module on ECINET.

From March 15 till March 25, 70,944 complaints have been lodged using the C-Vigil App in the Assembly elections and the bypolls-bound states/UT.

“Of these, 70,831 have been disposed of and 67,899 or 95.8 per cent of the complaints were resolved within 100 minutes,” the ECI added.

IANS