With 185 candidates in fray for Nizamabad EC decides to use jumbo EVMs

Hyderabad, Apr 01: Contrary to reports that ballot papers will be used at the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency in Telangana, the Election Commission of India has decided to go ahead with jumbo Electronic Voting Machines.

The constituency is witnessing a record fight, with 185 candidates filing their nominations. The EC has directed the state authorities to procure a M-3 sized EVM for polling instead of ballot papers. The EC directed the Electronic Corporation of India Limited to supply 26,820 ballot units, 22,420 control units and 2,600 VVPATs of M3 make for the elections.

The constituency is currently represented by K Kavitha, daughter of Telangana Chief Minister, K Chandrashekhar Rao.

Telangana's Chief Electoral Officer, Rajat Kumar said that there are as many as 185 candidates contesting from this seat.

As many as 200 nominations were filed of which 11 were rejected during scrutiny. 4 candidates withdrew from the race and the number stood at 185.

The top candidates in the fray are Kavitha, Madhu Yashki Goud of the Congress and Dharmapuri Aravind of the BJP.

Interestingly 178 turmeric and red jowar cultivating farmers filed their nominations as independents. They said that they wanted to highlight the plight of the farmers. Initially the plan was to field 1,000 farmers from the constituency, but many of them pulled out.

The EC had said earlier that it would go for the ballot paper form of voting as it would not be possible to use the EVMs duet to the large number of candidates.

Each EVM can record only 16 names and the control unit can record the voting of only four such EVMs linked together. This means that each control unit can register a maximum of 64 candidates. Nizamabad in all has 1.5 million voters.