Meet Prashant Patel, the AAP’s Nightmare for The Last Three Years

Prashant has been answering continuous calls from the media since news of the EC recommendation on AAP MLAs broke.

Prashant Patel, the lawyer who reported 21 AAP MLAs to the President and the Election Commission for holding an Office-Of-Profit in 2015.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

Full time messiah, or part-time troll? Political stooge or a servant of the justice system?Prashant Patel, the lawyer who petitioned to the Election Commission against alleged office of profit held by 21 AAP MLAs in 2015, says that he doesn’t belong to any political party.

“I did not file this petition because I am a part of any political party. I sent it as a layman. For someone interested in politics, in a city like Delhi, it is impossible to avoid it. I realised something was amiss. After doing research, I found the move to be unconstitutional and filed a plea with the President’s secretariat”, Patel told the Indian Express.

As news broke of the Election Comission recommending that the MLAs be disqualified on 19 June 2017, Patel was swamped with phone calls from the press, the Express reported. Born in UP’s Fatehpur, Patel finished his education from Saraswati Vidya Mandir in Jahanabad. He went to Allahabad University for his graduation in computer applications and physics, and did his postgraduation from Noida’s Footwear Design and Development Institute. He finished his LLB from Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Greater Noida and has now been a lawyer for four years.

The 31-year-old sent a 100-page report to the Election Commission and the then President Pranab Mukherjee in 2015 stating that 21 MLAs of the AAP should be disqualified as legislators as they held offices of profit as ‘parliamentary secretaries’. The President forwarded the report to the EC which issued notices to all 21 MLAs in 2016. In response to the notice, the AAP tried to pass a bill that exempted parliamentary secretaries from office-of-profit. The post was without any monetary benefit, the AAP had argued at the time. The Bill was, however, rejected by the President in June 2016.

Later that year, the Delhi High Court scrapped the legislators’ appointment as parliamentary secretaries. The AAP then went to the EC stating that they must not deliberate on an issue that the courts have already pronounced a judgment on. The EC, however, recommended to the President on 19 January 2017 that all these named AAP MLAs who held office of profit from 10 March 2015 to 8 September 2017, should be disqualified.

The struggle, however, Patel says, was not easy.

Initially, it was pending in the office in the first few months. I had to file multiple RTIs (right to information petitions), letters to the President’s secretariat. I didn’t think the matter will become this big. I am happy that the time I have spent on this has paid off

Prashant Patel to <a href="http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Yr5Fydqi6wxxXu0hgXhIsM/Who-is-Prashant-Patel.html">Livemint</a>

Saying that he is a lawyer by “choice and not chance”, he told the paper that he didn’t want to comment on the functioning of the Delhi government. “The government’s functioning is a political issue and I would not like to comment on that. The only reason I filed an appeal is because I saw an unconstitutional attempt being made,” he said.

However, Patel has come under fire due to his social media habits when reports of him extensively trolling people, especially women like Chandigarh stalking victim Varnika Kundu, came to the fore.

The photo that Patel alleged was of Varnika and Barala(Photo Courtesy: Twitter)

During the Varnika Kundu case, Patel was the first to tweet out this picture claiming this was a picture of Varnika and Vikas Barala. Since then the picture was re-shared many times, even by politicians like Shaina NC, who later claimed her account was hacked.

He also makes inflammatory remarks on Twitter as follows:

Troll or lawyer-extraordinaire, Prashant Patel has definitely caused a deep-seated stir in the Aam Aadmi Party.