NEW DELHLI: Prospects of a one to one contest in general elections brightened with opposition parties reaching an agreement on seat sharing in Western Gujarat and Southern Andhra Pradesh States and several prominent leaders of the ruling Congress party as well as the opposition filing their pa pers.
The total number of nominations have crossed 2200.
The Janata Dal and the BJP have concluded seat adjustments for all the 26 seats in Gujarat In Andhra Pradesh, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) also arrived at an agreement on distribution of 42 seats in the state.
Talks were on between the BJP and the Dal here on working out an accord regarding 40 parliamentary constituencies in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The BJP has already declared that it would not field candidates against the opposition MPS in the state who had resigned en masse over the controversial Bofors gun deal issue.
M Karunanidhi chief of the Dravida Munmetra Kazhagham a pact on seat distribution would be worked out smoothly in his state. Agreement has been reached on seat allocation to the communist parties in the state.
Opposition leaders who filed papers in include Ram Vilas Pas wan (JD, Hajipur), Chitta Basu (Forward Bloc, Barasat) and Madan Dal. Khurana (BJP, South Delhi).
Federal ministers J Vengala Rao (Sattupai), Eduardo Faleiro (Marmugoa), Mohsina Kidwai (Meerut), Giridhar Gomango (Koraput) and P Chidambaram (Sivaganga) were among the prominent leaders from the ruling party who submitted their papers on Saturday.
Tamil Nadu yet again topped in filing of nominations with over 115 candidates putting in their papers. The nominations tally for some of the other states is Haryana 58, Kerala 51, Maharashira 51, Orissa 38, Bihar 32, Punjab 31 and Delhi 39
Jn dramatic developments in Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha Jayaram, supremo of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (AIADMK) dropped several party leaders and sitting members of Parliament including the Lok Sabha Deputy speaker Thampi, Dural and party parliamentary party leader P Kolandaivelu from the list of 10 candidates for the elections to Lok Sabha.
K P Unnikrishnan, the National Front central secretariat member and Congress (S) General Secretary has also filed his papers from Badakara, Kerala.
The communist parties may put up candidates in the Norther belt and the BJP might do likewise in the leftist strongholds of Kerala and West Bengal but it is not likely to have much impact as their influence in those states are limited.
Five states Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Goa and Karnataka and Assembly constituencies (by-elections) in Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Kerala, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and West Bengal will also go to the poll simply anfously with the elections to 529 LOK Sabha seats. Polls in Assam are not being held along will the rest of the country.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 3, 1989
