Jose K Mani's nomination accepted; LDF, BJP protest
The United Democratic Front candidate is fighting the Kottayam LS seat
After a 12-hour long tense situation, district collector of Kottayam, Ajithkumar, accepted the nomination of Jose K Mani, United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate of the Kottayam Lok Sabha segment.
The collector, who is also the electoral officer of the constituency, announced his decision in a late night meeting of various party leaders, on Tuesday. His announcement created tense scene in front of the collectorate as workers of both the fronts and BJP shouted slogans, in favour of the decision and against it.
The collector started hearing the complaints raised by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the BJP by 11 in the morning and this went on till 6 pm. He informed that he would announce the decision by 7 pm. But the announcement came out only by 11 in the night.
Ajitkumar informed party leaders he had received the required data over the chairmanship of Kerala Congress from the Election Commission and took the decision accordingly. He said according to the documents, K M Mani was elected as chairman of the party in 2012. Hence, there was no anomaly in putting his signature in from A submitted along with the nomination.
Both the LDF and the BJP strongly objected to this saying the collector misused his powers and acted against the election rules. They said they would challenge the decision in the court.
Meanwhile, Biju Prabhakar, district collector of Thiruvananthapuram, accepted the nominations of Shashi Tharoor (Congress- Thiruvananthapuram), Bindu Krishna (Congress - Attingal) and Bennet Abraham (CPI-Thiruvananthapuram). With this, all the nominations of major political fronts of the state and the BJP had been accepted.
The collector, who is also the electoral officer of the constituency, announced his decision in a late night meeting of various party leaders, on Tuesday. His announcement created tense scene in front of the collectorate as workers of both the fronts and BJP shouted slogans, in favour of the decision and against it.
The collector started hearing the complaints raised by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the BJP by 11 in the morning and this went on till 6 pm. He informed that he would announce the decision by 7 pm. But the announcement came out only by 11 in the night.
Ajitkumar informed party leaders he had received the required data over the chairmanship of Kerala Congress from the Election Commission and took the decision accordingly. He said according to the documents, K M Mani was elected as chairman of the party in 2012. Hence, there was no anomaly in putting his signature in from A submitted along with the nomination.
Both the LDF and the BJP strongly objected to this saying the collector misused his powers and acted against the election rules. They said they would challenge the decision in the court.
Meanwhile, Biju Prabhakar, district collector of Thiruvananthapuram, accepted the nominations of Shashi Tharoor (Congress- Thiruvananthapuram), Bindu Krishna (Congress - Attingal) and Bennet Abraham (CPI-Thiruvananthapuram). With this, all the nominations of major political fronts of the state and the BJP had been accepted.
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First Published: Mar 26 2014 | 8:31 PM IST