SURVAPET: A la Nizamabad Lok Sabha election, as many as 119 sets of nominations were filed for the Huzurnagar Assembly seat on Monday, for which the byelection is scheduled on October 21. In Nizamabad, a whopping 185 candidates were in the fray, most of whom were farmers resenting the delay in establishing a turmeric board in Nizamabad.
In Huzurnagar, apart from candidates of mainstream parties, students of Osmania and Kakatiya universities, farmers and sarpanches filed papers en masse on the last day for filing of nominations. Each class of contestants had specific reasons for filing nominations.
The candidates of mainstream parties who filed their nominations were N Padmavathi (Congress), S Saidi Reddy (TRS), K Rama Rao (BJP) and Ch Kiranmayi (TDP). Osmania and Kakatiya university students wanted to register their protest against the government for not addressing their problems.
Farmers were demanding ownership rights on Podu lands and the sarpanches’ action was in protest against the joint cheque power given to them and upa-sarpanches. They wanted exclusive cheque power given to them. Though advocates too wanted to file nominations en masse in protest against shifting of civil and criminal cases to Kodad from Huzurnagar, they decided against it after the intervention of the TRS leadership. It remains to be seen how many would remain in the fray after scrutiny and withdrawals.
Papers rejected, sarpanches protest
Suryapeta: The members of the State Sarpanches Forum alleged that election officials have rejected nomination papers of 40 sarpanches for various reasons and also not allowed 30 sarpanches to file their papers. Irked by the officials’ attitude, the sarpanches staged a protest in front of the returning officer’s office. Forum leader V Dhanalakshmi informed the media that the papers of about 40 sarpanches were rejected. The Sarpanches Forum members alleged that the officials rejected their nominations as they were under pressure from the leaders of the ruling TRS party