Battle lines drawn, nearly 2,500 candidates in fray for 272 wards

Nearly 2,500 candidates are in the fray from 272 wards for municipal elections in Delhi, as per the latest data provided by the state election commission on Saturday.

Saturday was the last date of withdrawal of candidature and after a thorough scrutiny of 4,599 nomination papers filed for the elections, the poll panel cleared 2,379 contestants.

As per the data provided by the state election commission late Saturday night, North Delhi will have the maximum number of contestants at 945 for 104 wards. This is followed by SDMC’s 943 candidates for 104 wards. In East Delhi, 491 candidates are now left in the fray for 64 wards.

On Saturday, 221 candidates withdrew their applications. The election for the control of the three civic bodies will be held on April 23. Of these several were independents and ‘covering’ candidates put up by various political parties.

On April 6, the election body had rejected 1,718 applications by 1210 candidates (many had submitted multiple forms) due to different anomalies.

As per the election commission data, 19 candidates from the BJP, 17 from the Congress, 44 of AAP, 3 from BSP and two from JDU withdrew their nominations. As many as 127 independents also withdrew their candidature, as per the poll body data.

The rejection of some official candidates of BJP, Congress and Swaraj India had sent the leaderships of the parties into a tizzy, triggering protests.

The state poll body had rejected eight nominations of the BJP, of which four seats were saved because of backup candidates.

However, on four seats even the backup candidates of the party lost their candidature. Later, two more nominees of the party lost their seat. In a breather on Saturday, the Delhi High Court cleared the nomination of Saroj Singh, the BJP candidate from Trilokpuri West.

The Congress nominee from Dwarka A, Sudha Sharma, also lost the opportunity to contest following the rejection of her nomination.

Swaraj India, which is contesting its first election, was dealt a major blow after as many as 24 candidates of the party lost their candidature. This was led by protest by the party founder Yogendra Yadav and party workers.

The MCD polls will witness, for the first time, a six-cornered fight.