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Congress candidate’s papers rejected

SHIMLA: As many as 372 candidates are left in the fray for the 65 seats, for the second phase of elections scheduled for December 19, in Himachal Pradesh, said the Chief Electoral Officer, Manisha Nanda, here on Sunday.

In Gangath (reserved) constituency, the nomination papers of Congress candidate, Krishan Kumar, were rejected on technical grounds. Earlier, the party had made him the official candidate when its nominee and sitting MLA Bodhraj was declared non-scheduled caste by Supreme Court. Mr. Kumar could not produce an authorised proof of being declared as a Congress candidate. The BJP has also changed its candidate from here.

There is multi-cornered contest on majority of the seats except Rampur and Renuka reserved constituencies where it is a triangular fight between the Congress, BJP and BSP. These three parties, along with the Lok Jan Shakti party, are otherwise fighting almost all the seats in the second phase of elections. The CPI (M) and the CPI are jointly fighting in 15 seats in the State. A maximum of 11 candidates are in the fray from Nadaunta constituency in Hamirpur district.

The major parties, BJP and Congress, have not changed many of their sitting MLAs despite expectations of the rebels. The BJP high command’s representative, Sat Pal Jain, defended the party’s move to give ticket to D.D. Thakur, the Congress DCC president. He said it was not opportunism but the party had exploited the situation to its advantage. He claimed there was no resentment in the Mandal unit of BJP after the allotment of ticket to a die hard Congressman.

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