Final list of Kashi candidates to be released today

Varanasi: After the rejection of papers of 71 candidates during scrutiny of nomination forms 31 candidates including Prime Minister Narendra Modi of Bharatiya Janata Party, Ajay Rai of Congress, Shalini Yadav of Samajwadi Party, jailed don-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and Surendra of SBSP are in fray for Varanasi parliamentary constituency.
The process of scrutiny of nomination forms was completed on Tuesday late night.
The final list of candidates will be released on Thursday afternoon after the end of time for nomination withdrawal and allotment of symbols.
District election officer Surendra Singh, on Wednesday, said that 102 candidates had filed 119 nomination forms.
During the scrutiny, he said, nomination of only 31 was accepted while 88 forms of 71 candidates were rejected.
Apart from the candidates of prominent political parties, papers of Rajendra Gandi, Ashutosh Kumar Pandey, Manohar Anand Rao Patil, Ashin US, Sunil Kumar, Chandrika Prasad, Brijendra Dutt Tripathi, Umesh Chandra Katiyar, Ram Sharan, Anil Kumar Chaurasia, Rajesh Bhartiya Surya, Hina Shahid, Sheikh Miraj Baba, Manav, Amaresh Mishra, Shyam Nandan Prasad, Tribhuvan Sharma, Rakesh Pratap, Arjun Ram Shankar Mishra, Hari Bhai Patel, Istari Sunnam, Rajkumar Soni, Manish Srivastava, Sanjay Vishwakarma and Premnath were accepted.