E-Paper
First phase: Nominations for Lok Sabha election to begin on 8 Uttar Pradesh seats today
These eight Lok Sabha constituencies are Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) will issue the notification for the first phase of the Lok Sabha election on Wednesday (March 20) and the process of filing nominations in eight constituencies in the state will start the same day, Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer Navdeep Rinwa said on Tuesday. Polling for this phase will be held on April 19.
These eight Lok Sabha constituencies are Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit. Except for Nagina (reserved for Scheduled Caste), the others are general category seats.
There are 1.43 crore voters in these eight constituencies -- 76.23 lakh male, 67.14 lakh female and 824 third gender voters. There are 7693 polling stations and 14,842 polling booths.
The last date for filing nominations for these seats is March 27. Scrutiny will be done on March 28. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 30. The counting of votes in all the constituencies of Uttar Pradesh will be done on June 4.
Rinwa said nominations can be made between 11am and 3pm, he added.
All the eight Lok Sabha constituencies are located in Saharanpur, Moradabad and Bareilly divisions and nine districts – Saharanpur, Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Moradabad, Rampur, Pilibhit and Bareilly.
The CEO said the general category candidate will have to make a security deposit of ₹25,000 and SC/ST candidate 12,500. Candidates of national/state parties will require one elector from the constituency as proposer and registered unrecognised political parties and independent candidates will require 10 proposers. The maximum expenditure limit in the Lok Sabha constituency is fixed at ₹95 lakh.
At the time of nomination, entry of a maximum three vehicles and five persons, including the candidate, will be allowed within the radius of 100 metres of the office of the returning officer/assistant returning officer. Candidates fielded by political parties will have to file Form-A and Form-B, he said.
The ECI is committed to conducting free, fair, peaceful, fear-free, inducement-free, inclusive and safe voting in the state, he said.
Uttar Pradesh is likely to witness a three-cornered contest between the BJP led NDA, SP-led INDIA bloc and the BSP that has announced to go solo. The BJP has named candidates for 51 seats, the SP for 41 seats and the BSP for 14 Lok Sabha seats.
