Notification for 10 Parliament seats which would go to polls in the first phase election in the State on coming April 10 has been issued by the Election Commission, on Saturday morning.
``We already issued notification for Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnore, Meerut, Bagpat, Gaziabad, Gautambudhnagar, Bulundshahr, and Aligarh Parliament constituencies and the candidates could now file their nominations from 11am onwards on Saturday", disclosed Chief Electoral officer, Umesh Sinha, here on Saturdaymorning. He said that nominations could be made till March 22 for the above ten seats while withdrawal of names could be made till March 26. He said that scrutiny of the nomination papers will be made on March 24 and they would declare the list of contestants on the said ten seats at 3pm on March 26. The voting for the ten seats would start from 7am on April 10 (Thursday) and would conclude at 6pm on the same day.
Umesh Sinha said that on Saturday, just one person Shandar Gufran, filed his nomination from Muzaffarnagar Parliament seat as an independent candidate. As mans as 1.69 crore voters, including 93.62 lakh males and 76.25females, would cast their votes under the first phase. EC put up 8435 polling centres and 16788 booths to facilitate smooth and easy voting in the first phase.
Sinha said that Sunday is a weekly holiday and Monday also declared as holiday under Negotiable Instruments Act on account of festival of colours `Holi’, so there would be no nomination process on the said two days. The nomination would now resume from Tuesday.
Meanwhile principal secretary (Home) AK Gupta, claimed to have issued directions to all the district police chiefs that after assessing lift threat to any one who had filed his nomination for the Parliament seat, at least one gunner should be provided to that contestants for his security. The security will be provided for three months. Gupta said that the decision was taken as political rivalry many time led to violence putting life of candidates at risk. It may be mentioned that if candidate of any national or state level registered political party dies after filing of nomination than election of that constituency will be cancelled.