The Election Commission on Wednedsay cancelled nomination of sacked Border Security Force (BSF) jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav, who was set to contest from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat on Samajwadi Party ticket.
Yadav was served notices Tuesday by the Varanasi returning officer over “discrepancies” in the two sets of nomination papers submitted by him.
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.
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He was also required to submit a no-objection certificate from the BSF, giving reasons for his dismissal.
The former security personnel told reporters that his nomination papers were cancelled at the behest of the Centre even though he had replied to the notice explaining the difference in reasons.
Yadav's lawyer said, "We had submitted the evidence that was asked from us. Still, the nomination was declared invalid. We will go to the Supreme Court."
Reacting to the jawan's candidature rejection, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwla hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and called him "weak."
"There would be very few instances in history when the soldier of a country would have been compelled to challenge the Prime Minister. But this is the first time in history that the Prime Minister is scared of a jawan and instead of facing the contest, he got his nomination rejected on the grounds of techincal faults. Modi ji, you are turned out to be weak. The soldier of the country has won," Kejriwal said in a tweet.
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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.
(With inputs from PTI)
