Poll fever rises as issues in nomination lead to ruckus

CHENNAI: Tension prevailed in several parts of the state when the nominations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls were taken for consideration on Thursday.

Nominations of the BJP state president K Annamalai in Coimbatore and AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran in Theni were objected to by the DMK and AIADMK functionaries over discrepancies in their filing creating a furore.

Despite opposition, poll officials accepted the nomination papers of the two candidates. Members of Dravidian majors on Thursday urged the presiding officer in Coimbatore to reject the nomination of the BJP state president and Coimbatore candidate K Annamalai after he used the court fee stamp for the affidavit filed as part of the nomination, which is considered a violation as per filing norms.

In the case of TTV Dhinakaran, the NTK and DMK cadres in Theni objected to the nomination stating that the candidate had failed to disclose cases pending against him. After details were provided and clarification issued, the nomination was admitted.

As many as 1,749 nominations have been received in 39 constituencies in the state. Out of the applications 664 nominations have been rejected, while the remaining 1,085 have been accepted after scrutiny on Thursday. For Vilavancode by-poll, eight nominations have been rejected out of the 22 and the remaining 14 have been declared as valid, Tamil Nadu public election officials told media on Thursday.

Reacting to the issue, DMK Rajya Sabha MP P Wilson in a social media post said, “one politician from the state is challenging others to write UPSC exams and often boasts that he was an IPS officer,” which has come a cropper in the filing of nominations (referring to irregularities in Annamalai’s papers).

Reacting, Annamalai said that the regional parties were scared over his candidature and objected to the nomination fearing defeat.

Meanwhile, DMK’s Salem candidate TM Selvaganapathy’s nomination papers were accepted after some delay as AIADMK and independent candidates complained of his voting rights in two places in violation of norms.

Advocates representing the candidate explained that an application had been filed to remove his voting rights in one place.