The last day of filing nomination for Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) witnessed a rush of candidates at the district collectorate as 305 nominations were filed on Tuesday for election to the civic body in the state capital.

The number was, however, less than anticipated by the district administration, which was expecting that about 540 candidates would line up to file for their candidature for 72 wards of the corporation today.

Nominations for the civic poll in the state had begun on April 16.

According to sources, about 940 candidates had submitted nomination fee with the state election commission for PMC seats. But only 383 candidates had filed their papers till Saturday.

With Tuesday’s tally, the total number of nominations filed for PMC stands at 748. The number of candidates could be a bit less as some candidates filed two sets of nomination, fearing rejection on the basis of faulty paper work.

With Sunday and Monday being holidays, the administration was expecting a rush today and had made special arrangements to tackle the situation.

Many people, who had accompanied the candidates for nominations, alleged that that there was chaos at Vikas Bhavan and the administration was apathetic towards managing the situation well.

“While police watched like mute spectators, hordes of supporters entered the centre with their respective leaders and accompanied them till nomination counters. On some occasions, police made hue and cry over not letting extra people enter the premises,” accused Suraj Yadav, who had come along with a candidate.

Additional district magistrate-cum-returning officer Arvind Kumar Tiwari claimed that special arrangements were made because Tuesday was the last day of filing nominations.

“We had deployed additional police to manage the crowd. Only one candidate who arrived to file nomination was turned away because he had approached us after 3pm. The nomination period was between 11am and 3pm and had to stick by it according to instructions by the election commission,” he added.

In the meantime, no case was registered against anyone for violating the model code of conduct even as there were examples of flouting the norms during filing of nominations.

Sources said while only a proposer and a supporter were allowed on the campus of Vikas Bhavan, as many as 25 followers were seen entering the premises with several candidates and raising slogans.

According to the notification issued by the state election commission, videography was supposed to be done and monitored by supervising officials during the nomination to ensure that the norms were followed and cases were registered if there were violation of provisions set by the poll panel.

The supervisors could later debar the defaulting candidates from contesting the polls during scrutiny of the nomination papers.

When asked why no action was taken against any of the poll aspirant, Patna additional district magistrate (law and order), Ramesh Prasad, who has been appointed as the head of code of conduct cell by the election commission for PMC polls, said he was on leave and not in a position to speak on the issue.

Gajendra Kumar, in-charge magistrate of the district control room, said the onus was not on him to catch the wrongdoers.