Pune: Scrutiny of nominations has become an uphill task for election officers across Maharashtra as a whopping 33,606 forms were received against 2,869 seats in the 29 corporations. While Jan 2 is the last date for withdrawal of nominations, a final list of candidates will be released after the examination the next day.Political analysts said such enthusiasm was expected as the civic polls are being conducted after a gap of nine years. Elections to the local self-governing bodies are normally seen as “the political workers’ polls” as the political parties try to build cadre and new leadership for the state and national levels, they said.The number of applications was significantly high as all the major parties explored an option to go solo, politicians said. The delay in declaration of coalitions has also increased the chances of these aspirants to get tickets. Besides, parties have placed the names of many dummy candidates in the fray as a back-up.“They (dummy candidates) can get a chance to contest in case of last-moment changes in the candidature, problems with the official candidates during scrutiny, or an unexpected turn of events regarding alliances,” a senior Shiv Sena member said.The last date of filing nominations for the Jan 15 polls was Tuesday. A break-up of the final figures available with the State Election Commission (SEC) shows nearly 12 candidates have filed applications for every seat. Pune tops the chart with 3,179 nominations, followed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Nashik, with 2,516 and 2,356 applications respectively.The data also reveals even smaller corporations have witnessed intense electoral interest. Jalna and Nanded Waghala have crossed the 1,200 nomination mark despite having fewer seats than many. Panvel and Ichalkaranji have recorded the lowest, with 391 and 456 nominations respectively. In all, polls are to be conducted in 893 wards in the state.Surendra Jondhale, a political analyst, said many people have developed political aspirations and ambitions in the last couple of decades due to various factors. “Those include direct and indirect financial gains, which they are going to get by being in power. Collection and utilisation of funds for development works and contract allocations, as well as execution, appear to be a lucrative business for many.” He said many youngsters, especially unemployed youths, are also looking at the polls and candidature as a career option. A returning officer said the process aims to eliminate unqualified candidates to ensure integrity, leading to the withdrawal by Jan 2 and a finalised list by Jan 3.“Nominations can be rejected in the absence of the documents. The option of appeals to the higher authority or court is available. But in most of the cases it may not yield any results in favour of candidates if the nominations are rejected after due diligence,” he said.Prasad Katkar, election officer of the Pune Municipal Corporation, said the civic administration deployed additional manpower for the scrutiny and the parameters set by SEC were used for inspection of the forms.
