Hyderabad, Nov 16 (PTI) With 608 candidates withdrawing their nominations, as many as 2,290 contestants are in the fray for the upcoming Assembly elections in Telangana, the office of the Chief Electoral Officer said on Thursday.

As many as 44 candidates from Gajwel and 39 from Kamareddy Assembly constituencies from where BRS president and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is contesting, are in the poll arena.

The highest number of 48 candidates are from L B Nagar segment while Banswada and Narayanpet seats are witnessing the least number of 7 each.

Several leaders from Congress and other major parties, who filed nominations as independents after failing to obtain party tickets to contest, have withdrawn in favour of official candidates, on Wednesday, the last date for withdrawal of candidature.

Earlier, Election officials had found 2,898 nominations of candidates to be valid and rejected nominations of 606 candidates during scrutiny.

As per the latest reports, Telangana has over 3.26 crore eligible voters with almost equal number of male and female.

The Serilingampally segment has the highest number of voters with over 7.32 lakh while Bhadrachalam registered the lowest with 1.49 lakh electors.

Polling for the 119-member Assembly would be held on November 30, while counting of votes would be taken up on December 3. PTI VVK GDK VVK SS