With the last day of withdrawal of nominations on Monday, as many as 371 candidates were left in the fray for the 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat which would go the hustings in the third phase on April 26.
According to the Chief Electoral Officer's office, 81 candidates withdrew their forms on Monday leaving 371 candidates, including 26 each of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, in the race.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) had received total 572 nominations from across Gujarat for the 26 Lok Sabha seats. The CEO office, after scrutinizing the forms, had rejected 120 of these with 452 candidates valid for contesting.
The maximum number of candidates, 31, will be fighting it out for the Surendranagar Lok Sabha constituency, and the minimum six contestants are in the fray for the Panchmahals seat.
The maximum 17 withdrawals were reported from the Gandhinagar parliamentary seat where BJP candidate Amit Shah is facing Congress' sitting MLA CJ Chavda.
Gujarat will go to polls for the Lok Sabha elections on April 23 in a single phase for all the 26 seats. The results will be out on May 23.
--IANS
desai/vc
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