Everyone knows that conducting general elections in a country of India’s size and complexity is a Herculean task, and the Election Commission of India (EC) has had pulled it off with elan, time and again. But even the EC, despite its splendid track record, may find holding elections for the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency a little daunting.
The Commission is currently busy making arrangments for printing ballot papers for the constituency, where as many as 185 candidates are in the fray.
Over 90 per cent of these contestants are farmers who have decided to file their nomination as a mark of protest against the un-remunerative prices they have been getting for their turmeric and red jowar. Nizamabad is a leading producer of turmeric. Over the last one year, the price of the commodity has fallen to ₹5,000 from ₹10,000.
And they could not have chosen a better constituency than Nizamabad to draw attention to their plight as it is here that K Kavitha, Telangana Chief Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi President K Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter, is seeking re-election.
However, fewer farmers are contesting now than originally planned. Earlier, village development committees in the constituency had decided to field 1,000 candidates. However, the number later came down to 500, and then to 180.
Second only to Nalgonda
Besides candidates from registered political parties, as many as 178 farmers are in the fray. This, political observers say, is the second biggest number after the 480 candidates who stood in the Nalgonda constituency during the 1996 elections.
“There are 185 contestants in the fray in Nizamabad. So, we will be conducting the elections using ballot papers. Ballot papers have been used in the State in 1996 and 2010 and also in the recent Gram Panchayat elections held two months ago,” Rajat Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Telangana, said.
The size of the ballot paper and the number of boxes required will be decided soon.
The CEO, however, sees no difficulty in conducting elections in the constituency.