It’s Modi vs 25 in Kashi after 5 withdraw papers

Varanasi: A total of 25 candidates will contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his parliamentary constituency after withdrawal of papers by five of the candidates.

Following the scrutiny, withdrawal of papers and symbol distribution on Thursday the picture has finally become clear in this high profile parlimentary constituency with 26 candidates left in fray.

On the day of withdrawal of papers and symbol distribution, concluding the nomination process for the last phase of Lok Sabha 2019 polls, Sanjay Vishwakarma, Rajendra Gandhi, Arjun Ram Shankar Mishra, Rajkumar Soni and Shyam Nandan Prasad turned up before district election officer Surendra Singh to withdraw their papers. Singh said that after withdrawal of nomination papers now 26 candidates are left in fray in Varanasi.

The DEO started the process of symbol distribution.

While a senior BJP cadre and Modi’s polling agent Vidya Sagar Rai collected his symbol, Congress candidate Ajay Rai’s lawyer RK Goswami procured his symbol.

Samajwadi Party candidate Shalini Yadav appeared before DEO to collect her symbol and other 23 candidates including independent and other parties also collected their symbols on Thursday.

According to DEO, 102 candidates had filed 119 nomination forms. During the process of scrutiny of forms on Tuesday nomination of only 31 was accepted while 88 forms of 71 candidates were rejected.

A high voltage drama remained evident on collectorate campus on the issue of sacked BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav’s nomination form which was also rejected later.

On reasons for rejection of nominations in such a large number, the District Election Officer told TOI that, “Errors in fresh affidavits, insufficient proposers, unavailability of details of proposers and failure in submission of details of status of candidate in voter list concerned led to rejection of maximum forms while two of the aspirants had submitted forms without depositing the prescribed fee.”

Before the nomination process started here on April 22, the Congress had created suspense by tossing the name of thge party’s general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra as one of its probable candidate against Modi.

While Priyanka herself kept reiterating that if party would ask she was ready to contest. On the issue of her candidature Congress president Rahul Gandhi also maintained suspense. However, on April 25 Congress cleared the suspense by declaring Ajay Rai’s candidature against Modi.

Earlier on April 22, Samajwadi Party declared to field Shalini Yadav, who left Congress to join Samajwadi Party, against Modi.

However, in a dramatic development on April 28, the Samajwadi Party announced that Tej Bahadur will contest on its ticket.

On the last day of nomination process on April 29 both Shalini and Tej Bahadur filed their nomination as SP candidate.

However, nomination of Tej Bahadur was rejected and Shalini emerged as Samajwadi Party candidate from Varanasi seat.