ONGOLE : Ongole district Collector and District Election Officer (DEO) AS Dinesh Kumar said that after thorough scrutiny, a total of 150 candidates are eligible to contest Ongole Parliament segment and eight Assembly segments.
Speaking to the media at Collectorate on Friday he said the latest status of the nominations of the candidates filed till Thursday.
He said that a total of 206 candidates submitted a total of 354 sets of nomination papers to contest Ongole MP seat and all eight Assembly seats in the ensuing elections.
After a thorough scrutiny, the authorities found 48 of the nominations ineligible for contesting the elections.
“All the candidates are allowed to withdraw their nominations by April 29 and later, the district election authorities will allocate the election symbols for the remaining candidates as per the ECI norms,” the Collector explained.
“As of April 25, there are as many as 18,22,470 voters in the district. Authorities made all necessary arrangements for them to exercise their franchise peacefully. First phase randomisation of the EVMs for the Assembly segments having more than 15 contestants on April 30 in the presence of all registered political party representatives. The second phase will be held on May 2 in the presence of election observers and contestants. The commissioning of the EVM’s will be done from May 3 to 7 in the presence of the political party representatives,” Collector added.