Kumar Rajiv Nayan
Ara : Eleven candidates including sitting MP and Union Minister Raj Kumar Singh are in fray for Ara Lok Sabha seat which will go to polls in the 7th phase of General Elections on May 19, 2019. The nominations of 13 candidates were rejected rejected on April 30, 2019, during scrutiny in the presence of General Observer Har Sahay Meena.. Altogether 24 persons had filed their nomination papers for the Ara seat.
District Election Officer (DEO) cum District Magistrate, Bhojur, Sanjeev Kumar said that nominations of 11 persons including CPI(ML) candidate Raju Yadav and NDA candidate Raj Kumar Singh (BJ) were found correct after scrutiny. He said that security money of the candidates whose nominations had been rejected would be seized. The DEO said that the persons whose nominations were rejected are : Jitendra Kumar, Heera Lal Singh, Ashok Tiwari, Shambhu Prasad Sharma, Karamu Sah Kesari, Kalam Khan, Dhirendra Kumar Pandey, Dinesh Singh, Anil Kumar Singh, Ram Asare Singh, Sudhir Kumar, Krishna Singh, and Gupteshwar Dubey.
The nominations of Raju Yadav (CPI-ML), Raj Kumar Singh ( BJP), Manoj Yadav ( BSP), Anil Kumar Singh (Pragatishil Samajwadi Party), Krishna Paswan ( Bharatiya Krantiveer Party), Bharat Bhushan Pandey(Akhil Bharatiya Jansangh), Rajgiri Bhagat of Shoshit Samaj Varg, Dr Kumar Shilbhadra, Ram Raj Singh, Laxman Kumar Ojha, and Shiv Das Singh, all independents, were found correct.
The DEO said that the candidates may withdraw their names till May 2, 2019. He said now only one EVM is needed at each polling booth.