New Delhi: The Election Commission on Wednesday cancelled the nomination of Samajwadi Party’s Lok Sabha candidate Tej Bahadur Yadav from Varanasi on grounds of ‘corruption or disloyalty’.
The statement issued by the Returning Officer of Varanasi, Surendra Singh, read, “A certificate issued by the Election Commission to the effect that a person having held office under the Government of India or under the Government of a State, has or has not been dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the State shall be conclusive proof of the fact: Provided that no certificate to the effect that a person has been dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the State shall be issued unless an opportunity of being heard has been given to the said person.”
The district magistrate of Varanasi said, “A person who has been dismissed from service from state or central government within the last five years has to obtain a certificate from the EC stating he/she hasn’t been dismissed due to disloyalty or corruption. That certificate wasn’t produced before 11am, so, the nomination was rejected.”
The former BSF constable said, “My nomination has been rejected wrongly. I was asked to produce the evidence at 6.15pm yesterday (Tuesday). We have been told that we did not produce the evidence before 11am as asked, whereas we did submit the same. My nomination was still rejected. We will go to the Supreme Court.”
His lawyer, Rajesh Gupta, also said that they move the apex court over the rejection of nomination.
Equating the EC's move with the BJP's bid to stop a former soldier from contesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SP president Akhilesh Yadav said, “When they are asking for votes in the name of nationalism, they should have faced a soldier. How can people who dismissed him from his job because his complained about food can be called real patriots?”
On Tuesday, the EC served a notice to the SP’s Varanasi nominee directing him to procure a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Border Security Force (BSF). The poll body had asked Yadav to file his response by 11 am on Wednesday.
Yadav was dismissed from service in 2017 after he released a video on the alleged poor quality of food served to jawans.
As the candidate representing the SP-BSP opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh, Yadav was locked in a high-stakes battle with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha constituency.
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