As many as 15 candidates will fight it out on April 18 for the Coimbatore Parliamentary constituency.
Returning Officer and District Collector K. Rajamani accepted 15 nominations and rejected 23 on Wednesday, the day the Election Commission had earmarked for scrutinising nominations.
Mr. Rajamani said that after the close of nominations at 3 p.m. Tuesday, the officials in charge of scrutinising nominations went through all the 38 nominations and in instances where they had doubts or queries gave sufficient time for the nominees to clarify or correct those.
“We gave time till 11 a.m. on Wednesday for the nominees to correct and fill in missing details and only thereafter took up nominations for thorough scrutiny and rejection.”
The approved nominations or the candidates who would face the electorate included C.P. Radhakrishnan of the Bharatiya Janata Party, P.R. Natarajan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), R. Mahendran of Makkal Needhi Maiam, S. Kalyana Sundaram of Naam Tamilar Katchi and N.R. Appathurai of Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (fighting as an independent).
Pollachi
As many as 17 candidates, including five from political parties and 12 independents, will contest the Lok Sabha polls from Pollachi constituency.
District Revenue Officer and Returning Officer for the constitutency D. Ramaduraimurugan on Wednesday released the list of candidates whose nominations were accepted. The Revenue Department scrutinised 41 nominations filed by 31 candidates. Of these, 25 nominations were rejected.
C. Mahendran (AIADMK), K. Shanmugasundaram (DMK), Mookambika Rathinam (MNM), A. Ganeshamoorthy(Bahujan Samaj Party) and U. Sanuja (Nam Tamilar Katchi) are candidates contesting for seat.
Tiruppur
The Tiruppur Collectorate has released the list of validly nominated candidates after the scrutiny of nominations. Out of 26 members who filed their nominations, 13 were listed as validly nominated candidates. No major candidate’s nomination was rejected.
Protest staged
Nominees whose nominations the Returning Officer had rejected staged a protest outside the Coimbatore Collectorate. A. Noor Mohammad, who filed nominations for both Coimbatore and Pollachi constituencies, Umar Ali (Pollachi), Yuvaraj (Pollachi), Sundararajan (Pollachi) and Ashok Raja (Pollachi) squatted for a while in front of the Collectorate alleging bias in the rejection of their nominations.
Independent nominee K. Raghul Gandhi, who filed nomination for the Coimbatore Parliamentary constituency on Tuesday, also saw his papers rejected. He alleged that the officials had rejected it at the behest of the Congress as his name posed a problem to them.
Mr. Gandhi said he had obtained nomination form to contest in the Wayanad Parliamentary constituency and would soon file his papers before the returning officer there.