It’s election month in the city and BBMP’s revenue officers, who take on the electoral role of Returning Officers (RO) for the State Election Commission (SEC) are busy accepting nomination papers from contestants throughout the city.

For the past three days the SEC has been reeling tens of numbers of nominations each day and a look at their numbers indicated there are more nominations than candidates. Even though some major parties have not declared their ticket lists, several hopefuls have filed their nominations with the ROs.

Citizen Matters caught up returning officer C Thimmiah of R T Nagar to ask him a few questions.

We have been told that you are accepting multiple nominations per candidates. And in some cases candidates are filing nominations as independents and as party representatives. Have you had any cases at your office and how are you accepting the nominations?

Every candidate is allowed, by the rulebook, to file a maximum of four nominations. They only have to make sure that when they file the nomination they adhere to all rules under the category that they stand from. For example, if you are from the general category then you have to fill out a normal form and attach  three affidavits (two originals and one xerox) and pay a deposit of Rs 3,000 ( if you belong to SC/ST or a woman candidate then the deposit is Rs 1,500). The candidate can also file nominations as an independent and as a party representative. Because if the candidate fails to get the Form B from the party then he can always contest as an independent.

Form B has to be filed by a candidate to show that s/he is a nominee from a particular ward. We have been told that some candidates are filing nominations under party names and saying that Form B will be filed later. Why are you accepting this?

Although it is preferred that the Form B filed with the rest of the papers it is not mandatory. The Form B must come in before 3 pm on the last date of nomination filing.

If two different people come and file nominations for the same ward under the same party and say that Form B will be filed later. Are you accepting that also?

Yes, we are accepting it. As I said before the Form B has to come in by before 3 pm on the last date of nomination filing. The candidate who files Form B will be considered and the other candidate’s nomination will be considered invalid.

While waiting to speak to Thimmiah, Citizen Matters ran into several candidates who had come to the RO’s office. One peculiar case was that of a father and son both filing their papers from the Congress for the same ward 34, Gangenahalli. M K Chandra Yadav is Youth Treasurer for the Congress Bangalore( North). He and his father M Muni Ramaiah, a senior Congress leader, both filed their papers from ward 34 on 12 March.   ⊕