115 nominations filed for presidential poll

Around 115 nominations were filed till Wednesday, the last day of the filing papers for the July 18 presidential election, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat said.

New Delhi: As many as 115 nominations were filed till Wednesday, the last day of the filing papers for the July 18 presidential election, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat said. The scrutiny of the nominations would be done on Thursday.

Those who filed their papers include NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu and joint Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha, who are the main contestants. Besides them, a host of commoners have also filed their papers for the top constitutional post in the country, which include a slum dweller from Mumbai, a namesake of RJD founder Lalu Prasad Yadav, a social activist from Tamil Nadu and a professor from Delhi.

The Election Commission has made it mandatory for nominees to have at least 50 members of the electoral college as proposers and another 50 as seconders. The number of proposers and seconders was increased from 10 to 50 in 1997, ahead of the 11th presidential election, when the security deposit was hiked to Rs 15,000. (PTI)