Nominations Close, 920 File Papers in State

Chennai: Nominations for the April 19 Lok Sabha elections in the State came to a close on Wednesday with the filing of 1749 papers by 1403 candidates in all the 39 constituencies even as vote hunting by candidates and workers picked up momentum all over the State, ushering in an election mood.

Prominent among those who waited for the last day to file nominations were DMK MPs Dayanidhi Maran (Central Chennai) and A Raja (The Nilgiris), both of whom have been nominated again by the DMK, BJP State President K Annamalai (Coimbatore) and AMMK founder T T V Dhinakaran (Theni).

For the by-election for the Vilavancode Assembly constituency, to be conducted along with the Lok Sabha polls, 13 candidates, 8 of them women, have filed papers. Of all the constituencies, Villupuram has attracted the least number of aspirants, just 10, while Karur has seen 58 nominations, the highest in the State.

Among the interesting anecdotes relating to the filing of nominations, Ramanathapuram, from where former Chief Minister O Pannerselvam is contesting as an NDA candidate but under an independent symbol, has received 6 nominations from independents having the name O Panneerselvam. Since all the O Panneerselvams would be allotted independent symbols, it might be an arduous task for the former Chief Minister to promote his symbol among the voters.

Allotment of Symbols was a major bugbear for many other parties, too. Like Naam Tamilar Katchi chief coordinator Seeman lamenting the non-allotment of its traditional symbol, despite efforts to get it back, which has forced the party candidates to face the electorate under the ‘Microphone’ symbol.

At a press conference in Chennai, Seeman alleged that the BJP had a role in the Election Commission of India not allotting his original symbol. The same allegation was made by MDMK candidate, Durai Vaiko, who has filed his papers from Trichy constituency. The DMDMK’s bid to get back the ‘Top’ symbol legally ended in a fiasco and the Chief Electoral Officer, Satyabrata Sahoo, had said that the ‘Top’ was not among the symbols listed for independents and hence could not be allotted to him now.

Sahoo told media persons that the authorities were keeping a close vigil to prevent distribution of money and gifts to voters and the flying squads had so far seized Rs 69.70 cash from various persons found to be holding money in excess of the permitted amount.

Other articles seized included Rs 1.72 crore worth of liquor bottles, gold articles worth Rs 33.35 crore, he said adding booth slips would be distributed to voters at their homes from April 1 to 13. Nearly 7 lakh officials had been trained in election work though only 4 lakh of them would be engaged during the elections.

The electoral rolls were being continuously updated and the final tally stood at 6,23,26,901 voters all over the State – 3,17,16,099 women, 3,60,02,367 women and 8465 transgendered persons. To a question he said that first time voters in the elections would be 10,90,547.

On the electoral arena, candidates and their supporters went around their constituencies soliciting support. When BJP candidate for South Chennai, Tamilisai Soundararajan, went to some slum clearance board tenements, some people raised some question with her that she tried to sort out with them.

Earlier in the day, she went to the Koyambedu market and interacted with people. She even had a bite at a roadside eatery and paid the bill through G-Pay and described the popularization of the payment gateway to the level of ordinary traders as an achievement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Other candidates in Chennai, too, went around their constituencies on open jeeps as their party cadre called on voters at their homes and distributed pamphlets. In Ponneri, BJP candidate Pon Balaganapathy, for whom TMC president G K Vasan canvassed vote, helped an eatery manager to make pooris as they visited the place.