They are in the poll fray for a lark

hyderabad: it's election time and serious things turn nonserious during the season and vice-versa. along with the 'most serious' candidates representing various national and local parties, there are some non-serious candidates contesting with great expectations. while winning the election is a different ball game, they make no compromise at least on making big promises.most of these non-serious candidates appear to be more keen on garnering publicity than enough votes to get back their deposit. keeping in view the large number of independent candidates, the election authorities have already written to the state election commission to enhance the deposit amount from rs 500 to rs 5,000 to prevent non-serious candidates from filing their nomination papers. with more number of candidates in the fray, the odds of authorities are innumerable and the lengthy ballot paper confuses the voters as well. as many as 57 candidates, including those of major political parties, are contesting the mayoral election scheduled to be held on january 22. among the independents contesting the mch mayoral election this time are: p anjaiah, a vegetable vendor; a sathi reddy, an rta broker; d satyanarayana sastry, a freedom fighter; p shivraj, a retired railway employee and m f ali baqri, who claims to be a journalist among others. p anjaiah, a vegetable shop proprietor, has been contesting for parliament, assembly and mch elections since 1978, but in vain. he claims he helped several parties in winning the secunderabad parliamentary and assembly seats. but, no party has fulfilled the promises it made before the election. i do not want to make any promises. i will show my work after winning the election, he adds. satyanarayana sastry, freedom fighter and senior corporator who represented t h e goshamahal division from 1956 to 1964, says he is well aware of the problems and his experience will help him solve them. he blames both the tdp and congress for the drinking water problem. the people have been listening to both the parties. after the election, no party will implement the krishna water project, he contends. syed shahnawaz hussaini, who is president of the nationalist youth congress, ap unit, claims he had been doing service to the poor for the past decade and desires to do more, if he wins the election. he contested for the karawan assembly seat in 1999 and lost the election. m f ali baqri claims the support of shia united front. he accuses the mim of treating the muslims as a mere vote bank and does nothing for their welfare.