Chennai: “Even if the number of contesting candidates goes beyond 64 in RK Nagar, the high profile constituency will only have electronic voting machines. There is no possibility for ballot paper polling,” a highly placed informed official on poll duty told DC. “It looks like that the final list of candidates will come down to less than 64 from the current list of 72 nominations being accepted. There were withdrawal enquiries on Wednesday, and Thursday being the final day of withdrawal of nominations, we are confident of using EVM ballot units,” the official said, ending the speculation on ballot papers.
There are several advantages in using EVMs. A machine can record a maximum of 3,840 votes and these units are ideal for a polling booth which usually has less than 1600 voters. For logistical reasons and error free processing, the ECI is also keen on using EVMs, the official added.
“The conventional method of voting by means of a ballot box and ballot paper is tiring and now with the kind of political drama haunting RK Nagar, the EC’s first and preferred choice is the EVM,” said a city corporation official attached to the RK Nagar returning office.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Chennai corporation released the list of 73 aspiring candidates whose nominations were rejected. The list also had details and reasons for rejecting the nominations. Both the ruling AIADMK and its archrival DMK had each filed four dummy candidates and all nominations were rejected as the nomination of the principal candidate was accepted.
Parties like the BJP, BSP, Naam Thamizhar Katchi also filed dummy candidates and were rejected by returning officer Velusamy.
Incomplete forms, lack of proposer’s identity, proposer’s name not in the voters roll, additional affidavit missing, were also minor reasons quoted by the returning officer for rejection.
