After scrutiny, 308 left in the fray on 22 seats
95 nominations rejected during the scrutiny of papers in the three districts of Prayagraj, Pratapgarh and Kaushambi
PRAYAGRAJ : With ninety-five nominations having been rejected during the scrutiny of papers in the three districts of Prayagraj region comprising Prayagraj, Pratapgarh and Kaushambi, now 308 candidates are left in the fray out of the total 403 for a total 22 assembly seats with withdrawals still to take place on Friday.
All these 22 seats, including 12 of Prayagraj, seven of Pratapgarh and three of Kaushambi, will go to poll in the fifth phase of the seven-phase UP assembly polls on February 27. While there were 244 candidates in the fray after the nomination in Prayagraj district on Tuesday, only 173 remained in the fight after the scrutiny by Wednesday night.
The maximum numbers of candidates now are 25 on Pratappur seat and 21 candidates on Phaphamau constituency even as the least nine candidates are there on Allahabad North assembly seat. On Wednesday, the returning officers of the respective districts of the region scrutinised the papers in all nomination rooms.
During this, two nominations were cancelled in Phaphamau leaving 21 candidates. One nomination paper was rejected in Soraon as a result leaving 12 candidates in the fray even as five nominations were rejected in Phulpur leaving 15 candidates and three nominations were cancelled in Pratappur leaving 25 candidates in the fray. Likewise, five nominations were rejected in Handia which now has 12 contestants in the race.
Seven nominations were rejected in Karachhana that leaves 12 candidates in the field while with 11 nominations being rejected in Allahabad West, there are just 13 candidates now in race. Similarly, 12 nominations were cancelled in Allahabad North leaving nine candidates in the fray while seven nominations were rejected in Allahabad South that now has 14 candidates. Six nominations were also rejected in Bara and three in Koraon leaving 12 candidates each in the fray on both the seats.
The scrutiny process saw intense hearing for the two candidates of the Samajwadi Party— Richa Singh and Amar Nath Maurya—who had both filed papers from Allahabad West seat. However, after the hearing, the returning officer objected to Maurya’s papers filed against Richa’s nomination and declared Richa as the SP candidate from the seat.
Maurya’s nomination then got rejected as it had just one proposer as needed by a candidate of a political party against 10 that he needed to be considered as an independent candidate.
Another rejection in Prayagraj was that of Madhavi (who goes by one name only) who had filed her papers as a Congress candidate from Meja seat but the party had later decided to field Shalini Dwivedi as its candidate from the seat and she too had filed her papers on the final day of nomination on February 8.
On Phulpur seat too, the nomination of one Vinay (one name) who had filed as a Congress candidate was rejected and papers of Siddhanath were accepted as the official Congress candidate from Phulpur seat.
Scrutiny also saw nominations of BJP candidate and UP cabinet minister Nand Gopal Gupta “Nandi” and that of his wife and Prayagraj mayor Abhilasha Gupta “Nandi” being accepted. This leaves them both as candidates on Allahabad South seat. However, Abhilasha Gupta is likely to withdraw her nomination on Friday.
12 papers rejected in Pratapgarh
In Pratapgarh, nominations of 12 candidates were rejected during scrutiny. Now the count of candidates in the fray has come down to 98 against the total of 110. Papers of eight candidates were rejected out of 25 who had filed nominations from Pratapgarh (Sadar) assembly seat. They include Ramji of Rashtriya Janshanti Party, Majida of Log Party, Dhirendra Gaur of Rashtriya Samaj Party and independents Mahesh Prajapati, Shivram, Pramendra Kumar Mishra, Rajendra Prasad and Alok Kumar.
Similarly, a total of 20 candidates had filed papers from Vishwanath Ganj seat. Among them, the nomination of Halimuddin of Azad Samaj Party was rejected. In Raniganj, 15 candidates had filed nominations and here paper of only independent candidate Hanuman Saroj was rejected. In Rampur Khas, 18 candidates had filed their papers but the nomination of Narendra Yadav of Subhashwadi Bharatiya Samajwadi Party was rejected.
Likewise of 11 nominations in Patti, papers of independent Akhilesh Kumar were rejected here while papers of all 11 candidates from Kunda and 10 from Babaganj were found valid.
11 nominations rejected in Kaushambi
Kaushambi district with three assembly seats saw 11 nominations being rejected during scrutiny. Among them was BSP candidate Santosh Tripathi who had filed nomination from Sirathu seat while that of Munsab Ali Usmani as BSP candidate was accepted from the seat. Sirathi seat is now left with maximum 20 candidates in the fray.
Besides, the papers of independent candidates Ramsurat and Sana Begum from Sirathu seat were also rejected while the papers of independents Surendra Kumar, Lal Bahadur, Dharmendra Kumar, Shukri Devi, Rambhajan and Shashi Kumar were rejected from Manjhanpur seat. Similarly, nominations of Satish Kumar and Mahesh Kumar, both independents, got rejected from Chail seat.