Imphal, April 02: Returning Officer Y Surchandra has rejected the nomination papers of Francis Ngajokpa of the Congress and Revolutionary Socialists Party's Thangkhagin to contest the Lok Sabha election from Outer Manipur Parliamentary constituency due to technical flaw.

The rejections were made during the scrutiny of nomination papers held at the Returning Officer's office at Lamphel today.

Y Surchandra, who is also the Imphal West Deputy Commissioner explained that nomination papers of the two had to be rejected as signatures of party authorities granting tickets to their nominee were found missing in form 'A' and 'B'.

While Thangkhagin was present in person during the scrutiny Francis Ngajokpa did not show up.

With the rejection of the two, numbers of candidates remaining in the fray for the Outer seat have been brought down to seven.

Those candidates whose nominations were accepted are D Loli Adanee of the BJP, Mani Cheranamei - Independent, Holkhomang Haokip of the NCP, Kim Gangte - MPP, Morung Makunga - Nationalists Trinamool Congress, Valley Rose - Naga Nationalists Party and Rosangzuala of the Janata Dal (United).

Earlier, the Returning Officer scoured through the nomination papers of the nine candidates in the presence of three Election Observers - KK Sinha, SK Deb and PL Dutta - from 11 am onwards.

The scrutiny ended at about 12.30 pm.

Due to strict security arrangements only the candidates and their three proposers were allowed to enter the Imphal West DC Office at Lamphel while sympathizers and party leaders, including prominent politicians were halted at the entrance gate.

For the two phase elections on April 20 and 26 there would be eight Election Observers out of which five are yet to arrive.

There will be five Observers for the Outer Manipur Parliamentary constituency that would go to polls first while the remaining would be for the Inner seat.

The Returning Officer further informed that the five Observers would be arriving very soon.

Meanwhile, talking to The Sangai Express, some Congress party leaders disclosed that the forms were faxed by AICC general secretary Oscar Femandes on Thursday afternoon favoring candidature of Francis Ngajokpa.

But the necessary papers have not been recommended accordingly by some senior party leaders as MPCC president and Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh has reservation against the candidature of Francis.

Because of this sudden development, none of the Congress representatives nor Francis turned up before the Returning Officer during scrutiny today.

Ventilating their ire upon Ibobi for not sending the recommendation, disgruntled party workers charged Ibobi with humiliating Francis at the eleventh hour.

Ibobi played his own cards at his own discretion without taking into account the opinions of other MPCC leaders, they alleged and said that this was nothing but 'killing the Congress only by the Congress'.

Meanwhile, a highly placed source from within MPCC, however, disclosed that Ibobi during his recent trip of New Delhi had endorsed the AICC-NCP pact to filed NCP candidate Holkhomang Haokip as a common nominee of the two party in the Outer seat.

The decision not to send the recommendation of Francis as the party candidate was due to fear of disobeying party high command, the source said, clarifying that the AICC had faxed the forms in favor of Francis owing to pressures from some of the senior MPCC leaders.

It may be mentioned here that the Congress team which submitted the nomination papers of Francis to the Returning Officer on Wednesday was led by veteran Congressman and Rajya Sabha MP Rishing Keishing who is also the chairman of the election campaign committee of the party.