The Election Commission has cancelled the nomination of Tej Bahadur Yadav, Samajwadi Party’s new Varanasi candidate, a day after it issued notice to him over a discrepancy in his affidavits.
Yadav was all set to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress’ Ajai Rai from the Varanasi seat, on 19 May.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED
The SP, on 29 April, changed its candidate in the Lok Sabha Varanasi seat to field Tej Bahadur Yadav in place of the grand alliance-backed (SP-BSP-RLD) candidate, Shalini Yadav.
Yadav, earlier in April, had announced that he will contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as an independent candidate from Varanasi.
The former BSF jawan is a resident of Rewari in Haryana and was dismissed from service in 2017 after he complained about the poor quality of food served to the Armed Forces and corruption within the Army.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
However, the EC on 30 April in a notice had sought Yadav's response after "incorrect" information was noticed in his nomination papers filed as an independent candidate and as an SP nominee.
The EC claimed that the information related to his dismissal from the Indian Army in the two affidavits do not match. The notice also said that if Yadav does not submit his response by 1 May, his nomination might get cancelled.
WHAT IS EC CLAIMING
As per Section 9 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, a person who "having held an office under the Government of India or under the Government of any State has been dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the State shall be disqualified for a period of five years from the date of such dismissal."
On Wednesday, District Election Officer (Varanasi), Surendra Singh claimed that Yadav, who was seeking to contest polls before the five-year suspension period, was required to submit an additional certificate explaining his position.
This is indeed required under Section 33 of the Representation of the People Act 1951.
The election officer further said that the former BSF jawan did not submit the additional certificates on time.
WHAT IS TEJ BAHADUR CLAIMING
Moments after the EC rejected Yadav’s nomination, addressing the media, the former BSF jawan said, “My nomination has been rejected wrongly. On 30 April, I was asked to produce the evidence. We produced the evidence, still my nomination was rejected.”
He also said that he reached the Varanasi polling office at 10.50 am but was not allowed to enter.
Yadav had earlier alleged there is political pressure behind this as no objections were raised at the time of verification of his documents.
Yadav, in an interview to The Quint, indicated that the Opposition is scared of his nomination.
“PM Modi is facing threat from the real chowkidar, therefore, he is scared. This is why questions are being raised on my nomination.”Tej Bahadur Yadav
SO WHAT’S NEXT
Yadav's lawyer, Rajesh Gupta, said that they had submitted the response to the EC on time. Both Yadav and Gupta told the media that they will approach the Supreme Court.
WHAT POLITICIANS ARE SAYING
Reacting to the cancellation of Yadav’s nomination, AAP President and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal alleged that PM Modi “got his nomination cancelled" as he was "afraid" to contest against him from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.
“There will be fewer occasions in history when the jawans of a country are compelled to challenge their PM, but this is the first time in history that a PM has been so afraid of a jawan that instead of competing with him, he got his nomination cancelled on technical grounds. Modi ji, you are very weak and the country's jawan won," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.
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