In a big setback to mahagathbandhan, Election Commission today rejected the nomination of former BSF jawan
Tej Bahadur Yadav, who was contesting from
Varanasi against Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on the Samajwadi Party's ticket.
Yadav accused the BJP of resorting to "dictatorial steps" to stop him from fighting elections.
"My nomination was rejected today ,” he claimed.
"My nomination has been rejected wrongly even though I had furnished the NOC from BSF that was required by the RO. I was asked to produce the evidence at 6.15 pm yesterday, we produced the evidence, still my nomination was rejected. We will go to the Supreme Court," Yadav said after cancellation of his nomination.
While, 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 govt within last 5 years has to obtain a certificate from EC stating he/she hasn't been dismissed due to disloyalty or corruption. Certificate wasn't produced before 11 am, so, the nomination was rejected," Varanasi district magistrate said.
Election Commission had served him notices pointing "discrepancies" in the two nominations filed by him. Former Border Security Force personal
Tej
Bahadur had filed nomination as an independent, but was later named by the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance as candidate from the seat.
In the first set of papers on April 24, he had mentioned that he was dismissed from the Border Security Force.
On April 29 he submitted a second set of papers – this time as the Samajwadi Party nominee for the Lok Sabha seat – but did not give out this information.
He was also required to submit a no-objection certificate from the BSF, giving reasons for his dismissal.
Yadav had posted four videos on social media in January 2017, which showed him complaining about unpalatable food at his camp along the Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir. After a court-martial inquiry he was dismissed from the BSF.
He was named as the Samajwadi Party candidate from the parliamentary constituency to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
(Inputs from PTI)