 "votes, counting of votes, elections, polls")
With the Telangana Assembly elections only a few weeks away, 608 candidates have withdrawn their nominations, leaving 2,290 contestants in the fray, the Chief Electoral Officer said on Thursday, November, a PTI report said.
The report added that 44 candidates from Gajwel and 39 from Kamareddy assembly constituencies are contesting the elections this time. BRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is contesting from these two seats. The highest number of candidates, 48, are from the L B Nagar segment, while Banswada and Narayanpet seat the least number of candidates, seven each.
Several leaders from Congress and other major parties who had filed nominations as independents after failing to get a party ticket to contest withdrew their candidacies in favour of official candidates on Wednesday, November 15, the last date to withdraw.
Earlier, election officials had found 2,898 candidate nominations valid and rejected 606 nominations during scrutiny. Senior Congress leader K Jana Reddy was among the candidates whose nominations were rejected. Reddy had filed his nomination papers for the Nagarjunasagar constituency.
According to the latest reports, Telangana has over 32.6 million eligible voters, with almost equal numbers of males and females. The Serilingampally segment has the highest number of voters, with over 732,000, while Bhadrachalam registered the lowest, with 149,000.
The Chief Election Commissioner of India, Rajiv Kumar, held a press conference on October 9 to announce the election schedule for the five poll-bound states: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, and Telangana.
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The elections in Telangana will be held on November 30, and the results will be declared on December 3. The Telangana Assembly has 119 seats, and a party needs to win at least 60 to gain a majority.
(With agency inputs)
