A total of 573 candidates have filed their nomination papers for the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat. The state will see a direct contest between the BJP, which swept all 26 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, and the Congress, which has not entered into an alliance with any party.
Among the main contenders this time are BJP national president Amit Shah from Gandhinagar, Union minister and Dahod MP Jasvantsinh Bhabhor, the Congress' leader of opposition in the Assembly Paresh Dhanani and Babu Katara, a former BJP MP-turned-Congressman, who is an accused in a human trafficking case.
"A total of 573 candidates have filed their nomination forms for 26 Lok Sabha seats of the state. On the last day of filing nominations, which was Thursday, 313 candidates submitted their forms," Additional Chief Electoral Officer Ashok Manek said.The elections will be held in a single phase on April 23.
The scrutiny of the forms is underway, he added. The last date of withdrawal of nomination forms is April 8. Both the major parties, BJP and Congress have fielded their candidates on all 26 seats whereas the NCP has only one candidate. Besides this, Bahujan Samaj Party, Aam Aadmi Party and Pravin Togadiya led Hindusthan Nirman Dal candidates are also in poll fray on different seats.
The nomination filing process begun on March 28 but no nomination was filed on first day. The last day of filing nomination was April 04 and the district election authorities conducted the procedure of scrutiny of forms on Friday.
Sources from the chief electoral office in Gujarat said, "We have not compiled the final list yet on the nominations rejected after the scrutiny. But the primary reports received from district election officers indicated that many of the forms were rejected after several discrepancies were found in the forms during the process. We will be able to make the final list on Saturday only."