Scrutiny of forms extended till dawn

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

For the municipal corporation elections, prabhag-wise election offices were set up at nine locations across the city. On Tuesday, the last day for filing nominations, as many as 1,870 nomination papers were submitted, putting all the Election Returning Officers (ERO) under severe pressure. After accepting the applications, each nomination was checked and arranged overnight. Various offices remained open until 5.30 am. All officers and staff completed the scrutiny work before leaving for home at dawn, only to return to their offices again at 10.00 am.

Political parties kept aspiring candidates waiting in the name of alliances. At 8 am on the final day of filing nominations, parties announced the break-up of alliances and declared that elections would be contested independently. Aspirants were told to file their nominations and assured that party office-bearers would submit their ‘B’ forms to the respective EROs. Some parties issued ‘B’ forms just one to two hours before the deadline, causing extreme anxiety among candidates.

The deadline for accepting nominations was 3 pm. Long queues were seen at every ERO office. Applications of all candidates who were standing in the queue were accepted until 5.30 pm. Once the filing process concluded, separate bundles of nomination papers were prepared at each office and distributed among officers and staff for verification. After a brief dinner break, scrutiny of nomination papers continued with utmost care until 5.30 am. Technically invalid applications were marked in pencil.

At 11 am, only the formal process of scrutiny and verification of nomination papers was carried out in the presence of candidates. If any candidate raised an objection to another candidate’s nomination, the papers were examined accordingly.