Jaipur, April 8 (IANS): The suspense over the Banswara Dungarpur Lok Sabha seat continued on Monday when Congress candidate Arvind Damor did not withdraw his nomination on the last day for withdrawals even after the party had announced an alliance with the Bharatiya Adivasi Party (BAP) on Sunday.

Monday is the last day for withdrawal of nominations. However, Congress’ Lok Sabha candidate Arvind Damor and Bagidora assembly by-election candidate Karpoor Singh did not withdraw their nominations even after the party in-charge Sujinder Singh Randhawa announced the Congress’ alliance with the BAP.

Both the candidates did not agree to withdraw their nominations even after pressure from the district and state Congress committee, switched off their phones and remained missing throughout the day.

Party leaders said that the PCC leaders pressurised the district president for the withdrawal of names and calls were coming from the state Congress committee since the morning to withdraw the nominations. District president Rameshchandra Pandya could not contact both the candidates and appeared dejected.

Congress worker Varun Purohit told IANS, “Even though Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, and Priyanka Gandhi addressed a big rally, it seems that the Congress candidates remain out of control of the party.”

This has triggered much political speculation.

Sources said that the BJP will heave a sigh of relief in the wake of a triangular contest for this seat, while other workers said that a few Congress workers might have done this because they were against the alliance with the BAP for this seat.

Meanwhile, the Congress factionalism was again evident as the state Congress committee was seen putting pressure for the withdrawal of nominations while the Dungarpur district Congress committee continued opposing the withdrawal of nominations.

Further, there is competition between 8 candidates in Banswara

“A total of 8 candidates are in the fray for the Lok Sabha elections which include Mahendrajit Singh Malviya from the BJP, Arvind Damor from the Congress, Rajkumar Rot from the BAP, Dilip Meena from the BSP and Shankarlal Bamania from the Indian People Green Party. Three Independents including Bansilal, and two candidates named Rajkumar will contest this seat. Meanwhile, there are three candidates in the Bagidora Assembly by-election, Subhash Tambolia from the BJP, Jaikrishna from the BAP, and Karpoor Singh from the Congress.