Gurugram, Sep 17 (IANS) A total of 47 candidates are in the fray for four Assembly seats in Gurgaon district for the upcoming Assembly elections as 15 nominations were withdrawn on Monday.
Monday was the last day of the withdrawal of nomination papers for the assembly polls.
Meanwhile, the educational qualifications of all 17 candidates who are in the fray from the Gurgaon Assembly seat range from a Class 12 pass out to one with an MBA degree from Belgium.
The main contest on the Gurgaon seat was between BJP’s Mukesh Sharma who dropped out after passing Class 12, and Mohit Grover of Congress went overseas to study MBA.
While analysis of candidate affidavits found that six of them have master’s degrees, five are graduates, and the remaining did not pursue higher education.
Mukesh Sharma’s affidavit submitted to the Election Commission to file his nomination from Gurgaon showed that the 44-year-old BJP candidate cleared Class 12 from the National Institute of Open Schooling in 2010.
Mukesh Sharma a native of Dundahera village here in Gurgaon is the co-convenor of Haryana BJP’s sports cell. After being denied a BJP ticket in 2014, Sharma had contested as an Independent but lost the election but this time he successfully got the ticket this time.
Sharma’s key rival and Congress candidate Mohit Grover (31) has a postgraduate degree in business management from the International Management Institute of Brussels, Belgium. Grover’s affidavit showed that he got the degree in 2014.
Naveen Goyal who quits BJP over denial of ticket and contesting the elections as an Independent from Gurgaon seat is a graduate of the University of Rohtak.
Among other candidates, Ankit Alag of Jan Sewak Kranti Party holds an MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) and Independent candidate Akshat Gait is also an MBA postgraduate from the Management Development Institute (MDI) in the city.
Another Independent, Narender Kumar, is a retired post-graduate teacher (PGT).
Sanjay Lal, an Independent who is fighting the election on behalf of a group of RWAs. Lal has a master’s degree in history from the University of Mumbai. He is an entrepreneur and consultant.
However, there is no law that the candidates have higher education qualifications to contest and assembly elections but people said parties should consider and check candidates past before selecting a candidate for an urban seat.
“Gurgaon city is also known as a cyber hub and also has offices of several IT companies, startups, corporate sectors and export houses. The city has also represented several international events. If a candidate is not even a graduate how he can represent the city in future? Parties should check qualification before finalising candidates ticket,” Nishant Verma, an IT professional said.
–IANS
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