Madhya Pradesh: Notice Issued To EC By MP HC Over Rejection of RS Nomination Of Meenakshi Natarajan

A single bench of Justice B P Verma also issued notice to three Rajya Sabha members of the BJP who had won the biennial polls in Madhya Pradesh recently.

The three RS candidates of BJP who had won the biennial polls in June in Madhya Pradesh are Tarun Chug, Rajneesh Agrawal and Mahesh Kewat.

Beginning the hearing in the case, the bench clarified that notice was issued to Mr. Chug and Mr. Agrawal because the final verdict on the petition filed by Ms. Natarajan may also influence their election.

Mr. Kewat was fielded in the biennial polls as the third candidate of the BJP leading to his contest with Ms. Natarajan in the biennial polls.

Biennial polls in Madhya Pradesh were held for three vacant Rajya Sabha seats from the state.

The ruling BJP was in a position to send its two candidates to Rajya Sabha while Congress was in a position to send its lone candidate Natarajan.

However, BJP had fielded the third candidate leading to elections.

In a sudden twist to the biennial polls, Ms. Natarajan’s nomination was rejected on the day of scrutiny of nomination on June nine by the Returning Officer (RO) and MP Assembly secretary Arvind Sharma on the ground of concealing a court case in her affidavit.

The RO said had held that she had failed to disclose in her Form 16 affidavit details of a private criminal complaint pending before a court in Telangana despite having received summons in the matter.

Ms. Natarajan had got no relief from the Election Commission of India in the matter.

She had however contested the rejection of her nomination form, saying that a court in Telangana had issued summons against her during the hearing of a private complaint filed by a woman and that the summons was issued to seek her response before the cognizance was taken.

The bench fixed September 11 the next date of hearing in the case.