In a major setback to Mahagathbandhan strategists, the Election Commission rejected the nomination papers of sacked Border Security Force personnel Tej Bahadur Yadav on Wednesday.

Yadav had filed two nomination papers in a span of around six days from Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. Finding discrepancies in his papers, the Returning Officer (RO) and District Magistrate Surendra Singh served a notice on him on Tuesday, asking him to bring NOC from Chief Election Commission Office in New Delhi.

Yadav had filed the first nomination paper as an Independent candidate and on the last day of filing date, Samajwadi Party sprung a surprise and declared him an SP candidate. Subsequently, Yadav applied as a gathbandhan candidate instead of Shalini Yadav, who had done the same.

He claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is contesting for the second time from Varanasi, was scared of losing the election against him and had coerced EC to reject his papers.

The district administration said the nomination was cancelled because Yadav didn't produce the required document in time. "A person who has been dismissed from service from state or central government in the last five years has to obtain a certificate from EC stating s/he hasn't been dismissed due to disloyalty or corruption. The certificate wasn't produced before 11 am, so, the nomination was rejected," Varanasi district magistrate said. Yadav said the NOC was produced at 6.15 pm on Tuesday. "Still my nomination was rejected; we will go to the Supreme Court," he said. In the nomination paper filed as an Independent, Yadav stated that he had been dismissed from BSF on April 19, 2017. In January 2017, Yadav posted four videos on social media in which he could be seen complaining about unpalatable food at his camp in Jammu and Kashmir. After a court-martial inquiry, he was dismissed from the BSF.

Samajwadi Party spokesman Manoj Rai Dhoopchandi said that the party had already anticipated this, which is why Shalini had also filed the papers. As of now, she is the gathbandhan candidate from Varanasi.