Varanasi: The Prime Minister’s constituency, Varanasi, has been a hotbed in this election, especially after the Ex-BSF soldier Tej Bahadur Yadav made public his intention to contest against Modi. The Election Commission (EC) cancelled Yadav’s nomination on Wednesday after he failed to provide additional certificates as requested by the District Electoral Officer (DEO), Surendra Singh.
Initially Yadav was to contest as an independent candidate and had filed his nomination for the same. However, three days ago, he decided to contest as a Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate for which he again submitted the required documents to the DEO. On April 30, EC sent a notice to Yadav after it found discrepancies in his nomination papers filed as an independent candidate and as a SP candidate. The EC claimed that the information related to his dismissal from the Indian Army in the two affidavits did not match for which a notice was sent to Yadav with an order to respond by May 1 or his nomination might get cancelled. Yadav failed to adhere to the deadline.
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.” Further, as per section 33, the candidate is required to submit the additional certificates to explain his/her position. Thus, the EC said that the cancellation is legal and justified. However, Yadav was dismissed only for ‘indiscipline’ whereas section 9 clearly mentions ‘corruption or disloyalty’ as grounds for disqualification.
Yadav has accused the BJP for influencing the EC as he was fighting against Modi and had exposed the condition of the army under Modi’s regime. Yadav said, “My nomination has been rejected wrongly. On April 30, 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.
Reportedly, a team of BJP members had visited the EC office to appeal for the cancellation of Yadav’s nomination. The team had even expressed its disapproval of giving time to Yadav to submit the additional certificates. Eventually, his nomination got cancelled. Surprisingly, BJP had fielded a court martialed candidate, SS Chouhan, from Manipuri in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
On June 7, 1991, Chouhan was court-martialled under sections 163 and 38 of the Army Act, 1950. After a year, the army chief acquitted him of the charges. Notably, no such affidavits are present on the EC’s website which indicates that there was no such order given to the BJP candidate, though as per section 9 it should have been ordered as he was accused of misappropriation of 27 kgs gold.
This shows the dubious stand of the ruling party and the failure of EC to perform its duty without biases.
Yadav and his lawyer Rajesh Gupta have said that they will approach the Supreme Court.
Yadav was sacked from the BSF in 2017 on the grounds of ‘indiscipline’ after he had posted a video on Facebook complaining about the unpalatable food being served to the soldiers.
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