WEB DESK
Withdrawal of nominations in poll-bound Rajasthan and Telangana ended Thursday. The final list of candidates will be known by today.
In Rajasthan, 5 hundred 79 candidates withdrew their candidature today,the last day of withdrawal of nominations. The final list of the candidates will be published tomorrow and symbols will also be allotted to independent candidates. Both BJP and Congress leaders have put their all possible efforts today to convince their rebel candidates to withdraw nominations.
Many leaders of Congress and BJP today withdrew their nomination after having convinced by senior party leaders. Even then, many rebel leaders of both the parties are still remaining in the fray. Meanwhile, senior leaders of both the main parties have now started campaigning.
Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot will address many public meetings at various places. Prime Minister will start campaigning for BJP from Alwar on Sunday. While, Congress President Rahul Gandhi is to start his campaign after Ziyarat at Dargah of Kwaja Muinuddin Chisti in Ajmer on Monday.
In Telangana, the high level team of Election Commission of India led by Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat reached Hyderabad this evening to review poll arrangements in the state.
The 11-member ECI team including two election commissioners, Sunil Arora and Ashok Lavasa, Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Ccommissioners Sandeep Saxena, Chandra Bhushan Kumar and Sudeep Jain have reviewed the preparations with the state Chief Electoral Officer and nodal police officers.
The team is also meeting the representatives of recognized national and regional political parties this evening. This is the third time that the Election Commission of India is visiting the poll-bound Telangana state ever since the state assembly dissolved in September this year.
The full commission will be meeting all stakeholders of the election process including electors, political parties and also state authorities during its two day visit and will be taking stock of the situation two weeks ahead of the poling.
The team is currently holding meetings with representatives of political parties to obtain their views on various poll related issues. The team will meet district election authorities tomorrow and also will review the situation with the nodal officers of various departments like excise and income tax besides state chief secretary and the Director General of police.
Meanwhile, the withdrawal of nominations has come to a close this afternoon. After scrutiny, the poll officials found more than 3000 nominations in proper format. However, withdrawal of nominations observed in considerable numbers across the state and the complete details are yet to come out.