india

Updated: May 02, 2019 01:04 IST

The Election Commission (EC) on Wednesday rejected the nomination papers of Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate, former Border Security Force (BSF) trooper Tej Bahadur, as its candidate for Varanasi to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The SP will now be represented by Shalini Yadav, who had earlier filed her nomination as the party’s candidate but stepped aside to make way for Bahadur.

“We are now contemplating going to the court,” SP spokesperson for Varanasi Manoj Rai, said.

Yadav, 43, was sacked from the BSF in 2017 on charges of indiscipline after appearing in a video to complain about the quality of food served to BSF troopers.

A report filed by the Varanasi returning officer, Surendra Singh, listed two grounds for the rejection of his nomination papers: that the documents were not accompanied by a “certificate issued in the prescribed manner by the Election Commissioner to the effect that he has not been dismissed for corruption or disloyalty to the state not has he been able to produce any such certificate by 11AM of 1st May, 2019 as prescribed in notice (sic).”

Another ground was that his papers ran foul of section 9 as well as section 33(3) of the Representation of the People Act, which states that if a government employee has been dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the state, then he or she will be barred from contesting elections for a period of five years, unless they furnish a certificate from the EC. Section 33(3) states that without the EC certificate, the papers will be rejected.

Singh’s report also stated that there were inconsistencies in the two sets of Tej Bahadur’s nomination papers, one of which he had filed as an independent on April 24, and another as a SP candidate on April 29. In the April 24 papers, Bahadur had said that he was dismissed for corruption or disloyalty while holding office, and in the April 29 papers he had said otherwise. Tej Bahadur filed an affidavit that he had made an inadvertent mistake in the first set of nomination papers.

The Varanasi district election officer issued a notice on Tuesday to Tej Bahadur for making different claims in his nomination papers. The former trooper then alleged that been taken at the instance of BJP. A senior BSF officer dismissed reports that Tej Bahadur had to furnish a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the force, and said neither the EC nor Tej Bahadur have not contacted BSF. Shalini Yadav said she was “ready for the big battle”. “I’m happy that I have to take on the PM as the Opposition candidate,” she told HT.