Battle of namesakes makes Rau a riddle

INDORE: Two candidates contesting from Rau assembly seat of

Indore

- Mahadev Verma and Rahul Verma - are reaching out to voters with their popular name - Madhu Verma, creating confusion.


One is a BJP candidate, other an independent, and both have requested the Election Commission to have their 'nickname' on EVMs.

"BJP candidate, Mahadev Verma and Independent Rahul Verma, who is contesting as an independent candidate, had requested to use their nickname - Madhu Verma on EVMs as they are known by it. As per the ECI's guidelines, the candidates can give any name, which he prefers to be printed on EVMs and thus, we have accepted the requests" Rau returning officer and SDM, Ravi Singh told TOI. He added that while BJP's candidate will contest on the election-symbol of 'Lotus', the commission has provided Rahul alias Madhu Verma the symbol of 'cauliflower', which he had requested for.

In the last assembly polls, Rau constituency had witnessed the namesake of BJP's candidate -

Jitu Jirati

contesting the polls. The locals attributed the independent candidate getting over 400 as little credit to him in the loss of BJP's candidate by around 18,000 votes. Congress has repeated its candidate of the previous election, Jitu Patwari in this assembly polls from the only seat with it in

Indore district

.