Kerala Assembly Elections: Time's up; 1,647 in fray

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 1,647 persons filed nominations for the elections to the 14th Kerala Assembly to be held on May 16 as the time for filing the nomination ended at 3 p.m. on Friday.  The nominations will be scrutinised on Saturday and the last date for withdrawal of the nominations is May 2. Rebel candidates have filed nominations in various constituencies and attempts to make them withdraw nominations are going on.

Many VIP candidates, including Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, filed the nominations on Friday. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, Excise Minister K. Babu, Water Resources Minister P.J. Joseph, Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash, Culture Minister K. C. Joseph and Health Minister V.S. Sivakumar were among those who filed the nominations on the last day.

 Many petitions regarding suppression of information in affidavits by candidates are likely to come up in the coming days.  During the last assembly polls, 1,349 candidates filed nominations, of which 227 were rejected after scrutiny and 151 withdrawn. The number of candidates in the fray was 971.

Meanwhile, the election observers have intensified the vigil across the state as the campaign will gain momentum in the coming days. As many as 47 general observers, 40 expenditure observers and 14 police observers have been deployed across the state by the Election Commission to check violations of the election code of conduct.

Checking unauthorised modes of campaign, use of unaccounted campaign materials and attempts to woo voters with freebies are the main responsibility of the observers.  Election special squads have already seized more that Rs 17 crore unaccounted cash, foreign currencies, liquor and ganja as part of the election surveillance.