TEHRAN -- In the Tehran constituency, 256 candidates barred from participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections have filed petitions for requalification, Ebrahim Razini, the chairman of the electoral supervisory commission of the Tehran constituency, said on Thursday.

Rejected candidates have until Sunday to file appeals to oversight bodies, he said.
Razini added that supervisory commissions have one week to study the petitions.
20 sitting MPs barred from running
Nearly one-third of the 7,240 candidates applying to run in the March 14 legislative elections have been barred, Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said on Wednesday.
He said 70 percent others have been endorsed.
The minister also said 20 sitting MPs belonging to both majority and minority factions have been rejected.
Pourmohammadi added the disqualified candidates are also entitled to file their appeals to Guardian Council (a committee of six clerics and six lawyers who vet all political candidates and laws for adherence to Islamic principles and Constitution).
According to a statement released Wednesday by the Interior Ministry’s election commission, 69 of the banned nominees had not resigned their posts before the deadline expires, 131 were involved in embezzlement or fraud activities and some 329 were notorious in their neighborhoods.
‘Figment of imagination’
Unity among the conservatives would help them to keep the majority in the next parliament, Shahabeddin Sadr of the United Fundamentalist Front (UFF) told a congress in Qom.
Rift among the fundamentalists is just the “figment of imagination” by enemies and political rivals, he asserted.
Sadr further said that the UFF has drawn up a plan to solve the existing problems gripping the country such as unemployment and high housing prices.
70% of NCP hopefuls disqualified
Esmail Gerami-Moghadam, the spokesman for the National Confidence Party, has said over 70 percent of NCP candidates across the country have been rejected.
In various constituents, veteran politicians including the former MPs, former Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts members have been barred from running in the elections, he told the National Confidence daily.
“We hope that oversight bodies take constructive steps to hold a competitive election,” he noted