The Election Commission (EC) has rejected 119 nominations filed for the forthcoming Goa Assembly elections to be held on March 3.

The papers of 317 candidates, including those filed by 45 women, have been found in order.

The scrutiny of the papers comes a day before the last date for withdrawal of nominations - February 16.

Joint Chief Electoral Officer Narayan Navti told reporters that a total of 556 nominations were filed between Feb 6 and 13.

"Large numbers of applications were rejected because the candidates failed to submit B forms which is mandatory to confirm if a person is an official candidate of the party. Besides, a few others of unrecognized parties had submitted forms signed by less than 10 proposers, which is unacceptable," he said.

However, a clearer picture would emerge on Thursday, the last day for withdrawing nominations.

A total of 19 political parties have fielded their candidates. Congress tops the chart with 62 candidates followed by the BJP (54).

A total 106 independents are set to take on party candidates in various constituencies. The newly-formed state unit of Trinamool Congress has nominated 21 "winnable" candidates to contest the crucial election.   

Goa has a total of 10,25,480 eligible voters, of which 5,10,549 are men and 5,14,941 are women.