A total of 3,584 candidates filed their nomination in total for the upcoming Telangana Legislative Assembly election between November 12 and November 19, the last day notified by the Election Commission for receiving applications.
According to EC data, 300 candidates from the Congress had filed their nomination, while 270 from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also done so. There were 272 candidates from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) followed by 182 from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
While the Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI(M) saw 64 candidates filing their nomination, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) saw 52 candidates filing their nomination. This was followed by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) at 36, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) at 21, Communist Party of India (CPI) at 5 and YSRCP at 1.
A total of 2,442 independent candidates and candidates of other parties also filed their nomination, bringing the total to 3,584.
The reason for the high number of nominations for the 119-member Legislative Assembly is that in many cases, members from the same family -- mostly the nominated candidate and their spouse -- filed their paperwork together.
This is to ensure that that in case one person's nomination papers are disqualified or rejected by the EC during the scrutiny process, the candidate will still able to campaign and contest indirectly.
The most number of nominations were filed on November 19, the last day, with the EC stating that a total of 2,087 candidates, which included 135 from the Congress, 128 from the BJP, 116 from the TRS, 112 from the BSP, 28 from the CPM, 21 from the NCP, 20 from the TDP, 13 from the AIMIM and 3 from the CPI.
1,511 independent candidates and those from other political parties also filed their nomination on Monday.
Telangana will go to the polls on December 7. Counting of votes will take place on December 11.