Hyderabad: For the first time, filing of nominations for several Lok Sabha and Assembly segments in Telangana went on till late hours on Wednesday, the last day of filing nominations.
Returning officers had a tough time with scores of candidates thronging the venues. The last minute rush was due to multiple reasons like political parties delaying the list of candidates, holidays and above all Wednesday being an auspicious day.
Prominent leaders like K. Chandrasekhar Rao of Telangana Rashtra Samiti and PCC president Ponnala Lakshmaiah filed nominations between 10 am and 11.30 am, considered to be an auspicious time.
Former minister Danam Nagender filed his nomination during Simhalagnam which started after 2.30 pm.Returning officer of Khairatabad segment Ronald Rose had to give tokens to Mr Nagender and M. Goverdhan Reddy of TRS as completing the formalities for them went beyond 3 pm.
Till last reports came in, as many as 188 candidates had filed nominations for 17 Lok Sabha segments, of whom 45 filed on the last day.
Khammam Lok Sabha the received highest number of nominations of 33 followed by Malkajgiri with 31 and Chevella and Mahabubabad with 25 each.
For the Assembly elections, 777 nominations were filed on the last day while 1,103 had been filed between April 2 and 8.The scrutiny of nominations will be taken up at 11 am on Thursday and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is April 12.
An interesting development on Wednesday was a TRS second-rung leader filing his nomination as a rebel candidate against party chief KCR.
Mr Beeraiaha Yadav, who took part in the grand reception for Mr Rao at the office of the returning officer, filed his nomination after the TRS chief left. He was apparently peeved at KCR for denying him a ZPTC ticket in Medak district.
Rebel candidates filed nominations in several places, increasing the headache of the parties’ official candidates.
Meanwhile, Telugu Desam nominee from LB Nagar, Mr R. Krishnaiah, was attacked by local TD leaders who were upset with TD president Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu for foisting Mr Krishnaiah on them.
