Karimnagar: Mainstream parties busy convincing independents to withdraw from fray

According to political analysts, there is a tough fight only between two mainstream political parties in the majority of assembly segments.

Karimnagar: With the process of scrutiny of nominations completed, candidates of mainstream political parties are busy convincing independents as well as candidates of smaller parties to withdraw their nominations to avoid confusion.

According to political analysts, there is a tough fight only between two mainstream political parties in the majority of assembly segments. Candidates may win the poll with a small margin. So, they are taking steps to check a vote split, which could be possible if independents and other candidates are in the fray. Mainstream parties are also expecting a threat from symbols to be allocated to independents. There were incidents of people voting for independents under the impression that the symbols allocated to the latter were of mainstream political party candidates.

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Some of the political parties have also made representations to the Election Commission requesting it not to allocate symbols which are similar to their party symbol, to independents.

In some constituencies, senior politicians and influential leaders are contesting either independents or on behalf of small political parties. With one day left for withdrawal of nominations, candidates have intensified their efforts and are using different methods to drop them. On the other hand, the use of more than one EVM machine is also haunting the candidates. One EVM will be utilized if 15 candidates are in fray. If the number is crossed, another EVM will be utilized. Voters would get confused while exercising votes if more than one EVM was utilized. So, they wanted to reduce the number of contestant candidates below 15.

Except Manakondur, more than 15 nominations have got approval during scrutiny in all segments of erstwhile Karimnagar district. The highest of 31 nominations got clearance for Karimnagar constituency followed by Ramagundam-26, Huzurabad and Peddapalli-25, Manthani-24, Sircilla-23, Vemulawada and Korutla-20, Jagtial-19, Dharmapuri-18, Choppadandi-17 and Manakondur-13.  A total of 261 nominations got approval in the scrutiny against 307 nominations filed for 12 assembly segments. 46 nominations were rejected in the scrutiny.