The camps of the three major political parties witnessed day-long deliberations on the finalisation of contestants to be fielded for the Kakinada Municipal Corporation (KMC) elections, here on Monday.
YSR Congress Party general secretary V. Vijayasai Reddy commenced a dialogue with the aspirants who had filed their papers from different divisions, while the Telugu Desam Party leaders headed by Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu were busy choosing the candidates for five divisions, as the party had already announced its candidates from 36 divisions and allocated nine divisions to its poll partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP camp witnessed unruly scenes for the second consecutive day, after the workers expressed their ire over the district leadership by throwing stones at the party office on Sunday. Endowments Minister Pydikondala Manikyala Rao was on the job of finalising candidates for the nine divisions, where the ‘issue of caste equations and the raw deal meted out to the BCs and SCs’ came to the fore again.
The final list of candidates from all the parties will be out by Tuesday, as the last date for withdrawal of nominations is Wednesday. Eight candidates withdrew their nominations on Monday taking the number of contestants in the poll fray to 438 by the end of the day.
Meanwhile, the High Court’s verdict on a bunch of petitions field against the Election Commission challenging its decision of issuing notification to conduct elections only to 48 out of 50 divisions was scheduled for Wednesday.