On the day of scrutiny of nomination for the April 19 Lok Sabha poll on Thursday, anxious moments prevailed for a few candidates, including BJP State president K. Annamalai and AMMK founder T.T.V. Dhinakaran, as issues cropped up over their poll papers. Eventually, their papers were accepted by election officials.
In Coimbatore, candidates from other political parties objected to the nomination filed by Mr. Annamalai, contending that one of the affidavits was on a judicial stamp paper, while it should have been on a non-judicial stamp paper. However, since another set of his nomination was in non-judicial stamp paper, his candidature was accepted by District Election Officer Kranti Kumar Pati.
Terming it a violation of the Election Commission norms, AIADMK candidate Singai G. Ramachandran told mediapersons that he would move the court. Mr. Ramachandran claimed that the DEO had uploaded the new affidavit after he had come to submit the complaint.
DMK in-charge of Coimbatore constituency and Minister for Industries T.R.B. Rajaa while mocking at Mr. Annamalai told The Hindu that this shows how much of an educated person he (Mr. Annamalai) is “as he did not even know how to file the nomination...This itself shows the quality, the extremely poor quality of the candidates of the BJP.”
In Theni constituency, though Mr. Dhinakaran had submitted two sets of nomination on Wednesday, it was said they were uploaded in the portal only by Thursday forenoon and this led to objection by representatives of other political parties. District Election Officer R.V. Shajeevana withheld the nomination briefly till the issues were sorted out. Later, the NDA nominee’s candidature was accepted.
In Tirunelveli, the nomination papers filed by a rebel candidate from the Congress, was rejected for want of Form-B. Except for the tense moments in Coimbatore and Theni, nomination papers of prominent candidates filed in other constituencies across Tamil Nadu were accepted without any issue.
After the scrutiny of 1,749 nomination received from 1,403 candidates in all 39 Lok Sabha constituencies till the last date for filing them, a total of 1,085 were declared valid and 664 were rejected. In Vilavancode, of the 22 nomination papers received from 18 candidates, 14 were accepted and eight rejected.
Candidates would be allowed to withdraw their nominations, if they wished to, by March 30. The total number of candidates in the fray in each of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies across Tamil Nadu and Vilavancode Assembly constituency would be known by the evening of March 30.
