3,239 left in final poll battle after 1,504 pull out in state

Pune: It’s official. As many as 3 ,239 contestants will fight the assembly elections across Maharashtra on October 21 after 1,504 candidates withdrew their nominations on Monday, the last day for taking back applications.

Overall, the state registered a 21% drop in the number of candidates in the fray from the 2014 assembly elections which had 4,119 contestants.

It was also a 9% drop from the 2009 assembly polls which had 3,559 candidates.

Pune district has the highest number of candidates at 246 while Sindhudurg has the least at 23. Chiplun assembly constituency in Ratnagiri district has the fewest candidates (3) in the fray followed by Mahim and Sewri in Mumbai with four each. Nanded South constituency has the highest number of candidates (38) followed by Aurangabad East and Beed (34 each) and Jalna (32).

As many as 4,743 candidates were in the electoral race ahead of the nomination withdrawal day. Bhokar in Nanded district, from where former chief minister Ashok Chavan is contesting, had 91 candidates in the fray but that number dropped dramatically to just 7 on Monday. Likewise, the number of nominations after scrutiny fell from 58 to 29 in the Pune Cantonment constituency.

A retired senior bureaucrat, who was associated with the election process, said many disgruntled leaders file as independents in the hope that they will be given offers by other mainstream parties later. “However, the number of withdrawals has been high this time. It could be the result of parties getting their rebels to withdraw in exchange for something,” the bureaucrat said.

Former state election commissioner and writer Neela Satyanarayan said independent candidates are usually the kingmakers who feel they can personally gain by winning polls on their own. “There have been instances of independents contesting and winning the Lok Sabha and assembly elections and later joining mainstream national parties for cabinet berths,” she said.