Roorkee: The election commission’s new norms which include ban on candidates having more than two children from contesting polls has given rise to a new trend this time -- the rise of “dummy” women candidates. The two-child-only restriction is seeing women — second wives and mothers — being propped up by aspirants who have become ineligible because of the restriction.Five women are among 16 candidates who have filed papers for the chairman’s post at Piran Kaliyar.Of these, two are second wives of men who could not contest because they have more than two kids.One of the men is Mohammad Arif who has four children from his first wife. Unable to contest polls, Arif fielded his second wife Praveen, 32, in the polls.“I am canvassing door-to-door for my wife. If she wins, it means that I have won the election,” Arif told TOI.The other example is that of Rao Irfan, whose second wife Daulat Jahan is contesting the poll. “Since Daulat does not have any child, so I made her file nomination papers in the poll,” Irfan said. In another case, a candidate Mannan Ahmed has fielded his 70-year-old mother after he became ineligible to contest.Incidentally, these men were “unapologetic” about getting their wives or mother to contest on behalf of them and saw “nothing wrong” in contravening rules in this manner.Piran Kaliyar Nagar Panchayat was constituted in 2016 by the then Harish Rawat government after merging four villages -- Bedpur, Mukarabpur, Puran Kaliyar and Mahmudpur. It is a Muslim-dominated constituency which has around 12,500 voters of which around 1,000 are Hindus. This notified town area body is divided in nine wards.

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