Mysuru:  Today being the last day for filing of nominations for 14 Lok Sabha seats in Southern half of the State, there was a frenzy for filing of papers.

The 14 LS seats going to polls on Apr. 18 are Mysuru-Kodagu, Mandya, Hassan, Chamarajanagar, Bengaluru North, Bengaluru Central, Bengaluru South, Bengaluru Rural, Tumakuru, Chikkaballapur, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi-Chikkamagalur, Chitradurga and Kolar.

The 14 other LS Constituencies in the Northern half of the State — Davanagere, Shivamogga, Ballari, Koppal, Kalaburagi, Bidar, Raichur, Haveri, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada, Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Belagavi and Chikkodi will go to polls on Apr. 23 and last date to file nomination is Apr. 4.

In Mysuru, two independent candidates (R. Mahesh and N. Nagesh) filed their nomination from Mysuru-Kodagu LS seat at the DC Office while BSP candidate Dr. B. Chandra filed his papers later this afternoon.

Meanwhile, in an interesting development, Congress candidate from Mysuru-Kodagu LS seat C.H. Vijayashankar, who had submitted two sets of papers while filing his nomination yesterday, today submitted two more sets of papers. As per ECI guidelines, a candidate can file a maximum of six sets of nomination papers.

Scrutiny of papers tomorrow: With the filing of nomination papers coming to an end today at 3 pm, the scrutiny of papers of all the candidates will be taken up tomorrow (11 am) at the DC office here. Last date for withdrawal of nomination is Mar. 29. Counting of votes for all 543 LS seats in the country will be taken up on May 23.

As per the electoral rolls updated as on Jan. 1, 2019, Mysuru-Kodagu LS Constituency has 18,57,713 voters (9,27,676 – male and  9,30,037 – female).

The Constituency which has eight Assembly segments — KR, NR, Chamaraja, Chamundeshwari, Periyapatna, Hunsur, Madikeri and Virajpet — will have a total of 2,187 polling booths — 235 in Periyapatna, 274 in Hunsur, 338 in Chamundeshwari, 270 in Krishnaraja (KR), 245 in Chamaraja, 282 in Narasimharaja (NR) and 543 in Madikeri and Virajpet combined.

While the BJP has re-nominated its sitting MP Pratap Simha, the JD(S)-Congress coalition has fielded former 2-term MP Vijayashankar of the Congress. The BSP has fielded Dr. B. Chandra as its candidate.