By IANS,
Chandigarh : The fate of a total of 1,222 candidates will be decided Oct 13 in the election for 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
Haryana’s Chief Electoral Officer Sajjan Singh said Thursday that 1,222 candidates remained in the fray after withdrawal of nominations and rejection of invalid nomination papers.
Out of the total candidates, there are only 67 women contestants, the second highest in any assembly poll after 93 women contestants entered in the 1996 assembly poll.
There are 1,155 male candidates this time, Singh said.
Puhana assembly seat in south Haryana has the highest number of 25 candidates while the reserved (SC) seats of Kharkhoda and Kalanwali have the lowest number at seven candidates each.
While the ruling Congress is upbeat about its electoral prospects this time also, others in the fray include opposition parties like the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC), and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) besides independents and nominees of smaller parties.
At most places, the contest will be five-cornered.
The Bhupinder Singh Hooda government had got the previous assembly dissolved August this year and sought early assembly elections. The previous assembly had seven months to go for completion of its term.
The Congress had won nine out of 10 Lok Sabha seats in the May general elections, prompting the party leadership to seek early assembly polls.
The Hooda government had assumed office in March 2005.