Ex-BSF jawan moves SC against cancellation of his nomination

Sacked Border Security Force (BSF) jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Election Commission’s decision to cancel his candidature from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, the same seat from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting.

Varanasi will go to polls in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 19.

Yadav was dismissed from service in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the food that was being served to the troops.

In his plea, he termed the poll panel’s decision of cancelling his nomination discriminatory and unreasonable and said it should be set aside.

“I am a farmer’s son. I will fight against this injustice as long as I can,” Yadav said adding that his advocate appeared in the court and presented his side.

The Samajwadi Party had fielded Yadav as its candidate against Modi on April 29. Prior to that, he was in the fray as an independent candidate.

Yadav’s candidature was rejected on May 1 after he failed to submit a certificate on whether or not he was dismissed from service for corruption or disloyalty to the government. Shalini Yadav, who was initially named the SP candidate, is the party nominee once again.

On April 30, the district poll authorities had issued a notice Yadav saying that he had filed different responses to a question seeking information on whether the applicant had held an office under the government of India or under the government of a state and whether he had been dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the state.

In response to the query in the first nomination paper, which Yadav filed on April 24 as an independent candidate, he wrote ‘Yes’, a senior district poll official said.

On April 29, he had filed his nomination as a Samajwadi Party candidate. In the affidavit submitted be him, he mentioned that he had mistakenly written “yes” in the column in his first nomination.

Samajwadi Party state unit spokesperson Manoj Rai Dhupchandi said, “The Samajwadi Party is with Tej Bahadur Yadav because he raised his voice against injustice and is fighting against the same.”

District unit SP ex-general secretary Dr Umakant Yadav said Tej Bahadur Yadav had paid the price for raising his voice against injustice. “His nomination was cancelled. But he has received tremendous support from across the nation. The party is with him,” Umakant Yadav said.

‘Threat call received’

Sacked BSF Jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav said that an unidentified person had called him on his cellphone and had asked for money and threatened him on Monday.

“A person called me and asked for money. I said I don’t have the money to give him. Then he threatened me with dire consequences. But I don’t care about such threats,” Yadav said.

He, however, said that he hadn’t filed a complaint with police in this regard so far.

First Published: May 06, 2019 21:40 IST