Sacked BSF jawan's election petition against Modi dismissed

Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court, on Friday, dismissed an election petition challenging the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.

The petition was filed by ex-BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav in July this year after his nomination was rejected by the retuning officer in Varanasi.

The petitioner's lawyer Shailender Srivastava had argued that the returning officer had rejected his client's nomination papers on the ground that he had failed to file a certificate issued by the Election Commission to the effect that he was not dismissed from the BSF on the ground of corruption or disloyalty to the state.

Srivastava pointed out that despite Yadav's request, the Election Commission did not issue him the certificate, and the returning officer did not give him reasonable opportunity to produce the same.

Senior advocate Satya Pal Jain, who appeared on behalf of Modi, had argued that under Section 82 of the Representation of People Act, 1951, an election petition against any elected candidate can be filed either by a voter or a candidate in that constituency, and that Yadav was neither a candidate nor a voter in Varanasi.

He further pointed that as the complainant's nomination papers were defective and invalid, they had been rightly rejected.

The High Court accepted the plea and said that Yadav had no locus standi to file the election petition.