BMC polls: Two BJP nominees secure tickets but fail to submit nomination papers
Mumbai (PTI): Two candidates of the BJP for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections failed to submit their forms on Tuesday, when the deadline to submit nominations ended, triggering a blame game between officials and aspirants.
Shakeel Ansari and Mandakini Khamkar were fielded from ward numbers 211 and 212, and their names had figured in the official list of the BJP.
Returning Officer Krishna Jadhav, who is in charge of both wards, told PTI that no nomination papers were received from the two candidates before the 5 PM deadline on December 30.
"I have not received nomination papers of the BJP candidates. So there are no candidates of the party from both the wards," he said.
More than 2,500 nomination forms have been submitted before the deadline for 227 corporator seats in Mumbai for the January 15, 2026, elections.
Ansari and Khamkar were supposed to make a debut in the civic polls.
Khamkar claimed she was outside the returning officer's office at 4:47 PM, when she was informed that her form would not be accepted. She was not even allowed to enter the RO office in ward 212.
"The RO decided to stop allowing entries around 4:30 pm. I arrived by 4:10 pm and had already completed procedures when officials told us they wouldn't accept any more forms.
"I received my AB form a bit late. I reached there around 4 pm., but the presence of many other independents caused delays in filing my nomination," she told reporters.
She blamed the returning officers for refusing to accept the forms.
"How can they deny the forms of BJP, the national party?" she asked.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
