Filing of nominations from Nov 12

The Election Commission is all set to issue the notification for nominations on Monday. Filing of nominations will begin on November 12 and end on November 19. Nomination forms will be scrutinised on November 20 and last date for withdrawals is November 22. The EC has also decided to conduct an awareness programmes on filling and submission of nominations.

Addressing a press conference at the State Secretariat, TS Chief Electoral Officer Dr Rajat Kumar said as per the EC guidelines, all political parties should submit three sets of party manifestos before they are made public.

He said the EC was also keen on bringing awareness among the people on criminal antecedents of contesting candidates. “Candidates who have criminal background must publish their criminal history in widely circulated newspapers in the area from where he or she is contesting. The publication must be in three different dates with prominent display and once on electronic media without fail,” he said, adding that political parties concerned shall issue a declaration in similar manner.

The CEO said the advertisement regarding candidates criminal history will be added to election expenditure of candidates. “If any candidate doesn’t have any criminal antecedents, they will not be required to give any advertisement,” he



clarified.

He said the intention behind directing contestants and political parties to issue advertisements on their criminal background was to bring awareness among the voters since they should know the history of contesting candidates of that area. He said candidates are advised to publish these details any time between nomination and two days before elections and submit those advertisement clippings to EC within thirty days of completion of election.

He said C-Vigil and Suvidha Apps are active in all 31 districts and people are using them widely. In all, 1,894 complaints had been received through C-Vigil out of which 1,012 cases were disposed at various levels. On giving training to Returning Officers (RO), he said so far, 357 ROs were called for training and among them, 119 ROs were asked to go for second time training to make them perfect on election procedures.

The CEO office mentioned that first level randomization of EVMs and VVPATs will be carried out on November 11 and 12 in the entire State and it will be conducted in the presence of recognized political parties using EVM tracking software. Under the randomization, a total of 51,529 ballot units, 39,763 control units and 42,750 VVPATs will be randomized during first level at all district headquarters.