The Hindu : Kerala News : 14,000 candidates to be blacklisted

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 15, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

14,000 candidates to be blacklisted

By Our Staff Reporter

THRISSUR, MARCH 14. The State Election Commissioner (SEC), N. Mohandas, has said that the names of the candidates who have been disqualified by the Commission will be specially listed in the next voters' list so that they will not be able to file their nominations for the coming local body elections.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr Mohandas said the Commission had disqualified 14,000 candidates who had not filed the statements on their expenditures in the last local body elections. Also 30 local body members had been disqualified under the Anti-Defection Law.

Underlined in red

The names of all these disqualified candidates would be printed with red underlines on voters' list so that their nominations could be rejected immediately in the coming elections, the Commissioner said.

He said it was for the first time in India that the SEC was taking such a step to eliminate the possibility of the disqualified candidates contesting again.

The SEC said the preliminary voters' list for the ensuing local body elections would be published soon by the Commission without waiting for the delimitation process to get over. The final list would be published after the delimitation process. The voters' list was being published as per the Census report of 2001.

Election in September

Replying to questions, the SEC said the elections to the local bodies in the State would be held in September as per schedule. The final process would begin with the election notification to be issued in the first week of September, and the whole poll process would be completed in the last week of that month.

He said the Commission would conduct classes for the political parties and the officials in every district on the local body elections this month.

Later when contacted by The Hindu here, Mr Mohandas said the SEC was ready for conducting direct election of the heads of the local bodies even if the Government gave a clearance by June or July.

The Commission had given such a proposal to the Government to provide for direct election of the panchayat presidents. The Government had not finalised its decision on this so far.

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