Kolhapur Municipal Corporation election, Nearly 1,000 in the fray, women rule list of candidates, Kolhapur Municipal Corporation polls, KMC polls, KMC polls notification , Kolhapur polls

Kolhapur Municipal Corporation election, Nearly 1,000 in the fray, women rule list of candidates, Kolhapur Municipal Corporation polls, KMC polls, KMC polls notification , Kolhapur polls nominations 

A week-long process of filling nominations for the November 1 election to the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) came to an end on Tuesday with slightly over 933 candidates in the fray. Among them are three former mayors and 18 sitting corporators.

Around 300 candidates filled the nominations only in the last two days with most political parties finalising their list of the candidates for the 81 wards and issuing AB forms to them. According to the primary data available at these regional offices, over 200 women candidates have filled the nominations for the 41 electoral wards reserved for them. The KMC is facing the election for the first time with the provision of 50% reservation for women candidates.

The regional offices started flooding with candidates and their supporters since early Tuesday morning. Parking lots adjoining the offices were packed and foodstalls were established outside the premises. The Independent candidates found buying forms till 12 pm from Gandhi Maidan regional office.

One of the major noticeable factors observed this election is the dominance of women in civic polls. Traditionally, only a handful of women candidates and their supporters used to participate in the nomination filing processes. However, with 50% women reservation this election, all the regional offices were full of women, flashing party symbols. At the Hockey Stadium regional office, women supporters of NCP and BJP, wearing their respective party symbols, were seen walking hand-in-hands and found enthusiastically participating in the nomination filing processes.

Three former mayors - Nandkumar Walunju of BJP, Tararani Aghadi from Jawahar Nagar ward and Uday Salokhe of Shiv Sena - is contesting from the Tatakadil Talim Mandal ward and Jayashri Sonawane of Congress from Nehru Nagar-are contesting the election. Walunju was defeated by NCP's Adil Faras in the 2010 civic polls and has been forced to contest from the Jawahar Nagar ward instead of Bindu Chowk ward where he has presence through his famous Shivaji Chowk Ganesh Mandal.

Haridas Sonawane, the husband of the former mayor, who is in fray from Sambhaji Nagar ward, said, "We both are confident to win the election as we served the people from our ward since last 10 years."

Along with the former mayors, 17 sitting corporators are in fray to test the confidence among the people they served in last five years. The prominent among the sitting corporators are-Bhupal Shete, Jayashri Sabale, Sharangdhar Deshmuk, Rajesh Latkar, Mahesh Gaikwad, Sunil Patil, Indrajit Salgar and Murlidhar Jadhav.

Durgesh Lingras of Shiv Sena objected the nomination of NCP's Dipika Jadhav, the sister-in-law of Murlidhar from Tawnappa Patane High School, alleging that the candidate has issued a false caste certificate.

The Election Commission had set a deadline of 3 pm to file the nominations. But considering the rush of the candidates, the officials issued tokens to the candidates procuring the forms so that the process to submit the forms can be carried even after the deadline.

An election official at Nagala Park said, "The Election Commission had asked us to make the facilities for both online and offline mode, but no one in the last two days opted for the online mode. As a result, we had to shift the employees deployed for online mode to the offline mode."

src: toi

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