Rebels’ papers found valid

Hyderabad: The nomination papers filed by two Congress rebel candidates— Adala Prabhakara Reddy and Chaitanya Raju— and six other candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls were found to be valid by returning officer S. Raja Sadaram on Wednesday.

There are six Rajya Sabha seats from AP and the presence of the two Congress rebels contesting as Independents is the proverbial fly in the ointment.

A final picture of whether there will be a contest or whether the elections will be unanimous will be known only by Friday evening, the deadline for withdrawal of nominations.

Both Prabhakara Reddy and Chaitanya Raju declared that either of them will remain in the fray to ensure the defeat of at least one candidate put up by the Congress.

Several MLAs from the Seemandhra region are bent on expressing their anger against the party for dividing the state.

Attempts are being made by senior Congress leaders to pressurise the two rebel candidates to withdraw from the contest.

Apart from Prabhakara Reddy and Chaitanya Raju (Independents), the returning officer accepted the nominations of T. Subbarami Reddy, K.V.P. Ramachandra Rao, M.A. Khan (Congress), K. Keshava Rao (TRS), Thota Seetha Ramalaxmi and Garikapati Mohan Rao (Telugu Desam).

When the returning officer took up the scrutiny of papers in his chambers attended by all the candidates, the Congress candidates objected and said that the two Independent candidates have obtained the signatures of Congress MLAs in a fraudulent manner and demanded that their papers be rejected.

The returning officer who had received complaints as well as letters from eight Congress MLAs conveying their withdrawal of support to the two Independent candidates, asked Prabhakara Reddy and Chaitanya Raju to present before him the MLAs who have proposed their candidature.

He gave them an hour’s time to do that, but both could only mobilise six MLAs. They said the others were not on the Assembly premises.

When objections continued, the returning officer summoned the Chief Electoral Officer and legal officers to be present.

It was found that under Section 36 of the Representation of People's Act, no candidature should be rejected for minor lapses.

Also, the nomination of a candidate cannot be rejected once it is proposed even if the MLA who proposed it later withdraws.

At the end of the day, the returning officer accepted all eight nominations, rejecting only Jajula Bhaskar’s whose candidature was proposed by only one MLA against the requisite number of 10.