12 candidates in fray for mayor post

Varanasi: To challenge the alleged monopoly of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the office of the city Mayor, almost all prominent political parties have fielded their candidates for elections to Varanasi Municipal Corporation (VMC), scheduled next month.Deputy-District Election Officer for urban local bodies(ULBs) Ranvijay Singh said a total of 12 candidates had filed nominations for elections to the Mayor post on Monday and scrutiny of their papers was held on Tuesday.Apart from BJP’s Ashok Tiwari and Samajwadi Party’s Om Prakash Singh, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Subhash Chandra Majhi, Aam Adami Party’s Sharda Tandon and independent candidates Omprakash Chaurasia, Deepak Lal Asthana, Virendra Kumar Gupta and Ramji Chaurasia had filed their nominations on Monday. National Samaj Party’s Shamsher Khan, who had already filed his nomination earlier, also turned up to submit another set of nomination papers.Earlier, Congress candidate Anil Srivastava, AD (Kameravadi) candidate Harish Mishra and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party’s Anand Tiwari had filed their nomination papers. Officials said that while 12 candidates have filed their papers for the Mayor post, around 675 are in fray for 100 Corporator posts. Singh said the last date to withdraw nomination by any candidate is April 20 while symbol distribution with the release of the final list of candidates will take place on April 21. Voting is scheduled on May 4, followed by counting of votes on May 13, he added.