New Delhi, Jun 7 (PTI) Poll authorities here have accepted nominations of 14 candidates for the upcoming bypoll to the Rajinder Nagar Assembly seat in Delhi, officials said.

A 71-year-old man, who is in the fray as an independent, is the eldest among all the candidates and his nomination has been accepted, according to official data available on Delhi Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) website.

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The CEO office received a total of 32 nominations till Monday. Of these, 20 candidates had applied, some of whom had filed multiple nominations.

June 6 was the last date to file nomination for the contest.

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While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has fielded its MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak, the BJP has nominated former councillor Rajesh Bhatia as its candidate for the June 23 election, results for which will be declared on June 26.

The Congress has fielded its former municipal councillor Prem Lata. Nominations of all three leaders have been accepted.

According to poll officials, of the 32 nominations, 23 have been accepted and nine rejected. And, nominations of 14 candidates have been accepted after scrutiny while six (three men and three women) were rejected, they said.

Of these 14 candidates, 11 are men and three women, officials said.

Surender Kumar Puri, the eldest among all the candidates who have filed papers, is a resident of Pandav Nagar and has declared movable asset worth Rs 4.9 lakh and immovable asset valued at Rs 2.27 crore, according to the poll affidavit submitted by him.

Among other independent candidates whose nominations have been accepted are Ramesh Kumar Khatri (61), Shashi Raj (51), Ajay Kumar (26), Rinku Shah (64), Jai Prakash (33), and Rajiv Bhrigukumar (55).

The bypoll was necessitated in the wake of AAP leader Raghav Chadha leaving the seat after being elected to the Rajya Sabha recently. Chadha was the MLA from the Rajinder Nagar Assembly seat.

The by-election to three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats across six states will be held on June 23, the Election Commission had said earlier.

Chadha (33), had quit as Delhi MLA a couple of months ago and taken oath as a member of the Upper House of Parliament in May.

AAP leader Sanjay Singh had on May 28 had said Pathak will contest the Rajinder Nagar assembly by-election and had dared Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta to join the fray and defeat the Arvind Kejriwal-led party's candidate.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)