District Magistrate and Returning officer Dr Ram Manohar Mishra postponed the scrutiny of Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s nomination papers to Monday after objections were raised alleging false information in his election affidavit.
Independent candidate Dhruva Lal Manohar along with Afzal Waris, Suresh Chandra and Suresh Kumar on Saturday raised objections on three counts: his name, nationality and educational qualifications. They demanded that the nomination papers of Rahul Gandhi should be rejected. The returning officer has asked for response to the objections by April 22 after Congress leader’s counsel Rahul Kaushik sought time.
Dr Mishra later issued an order saying that the matter would be heard at 1030 hours on April 22. Due to the dispute, the RO also postponed the scrutiny of all the 36 candidates. Amethi goes to the polls on May 6. The Congress has opposed the move and claimed that how can anyone question the nationality of Gandhi family.
“Everyone in the country knows about the history of Gandhi family during freedom movement. Now question about the nationality of Rahul Gandhi, shows the narrow mentality of some people,” said district congress president Yogendra Mishra here while reacting on the issue. Congress spokesperson Anil Singh in turn demanded probe into the education record of BJP candidate Smriti Irani, who had earlier claimed to be graduate and now suddenly becomes 12th pass.
Meanwhile, a similar embarrassing situation was averted in the adjoining Rae Bareli seat when both Congress candidate Sonia Gandhi’s representative and BJP candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh’s counsel raised objections against each other. Congress representative objected that as the BJP candidate is still the Congress MLC hence he cannot file nominations without resigning from the membership of the legislative council.
Similarly the BJP candidate claimed that the original name of Sonia Gandhi is Antonio Miano, which she had not written in her nomination papers. But after long discussion Returning Officer (RO) Neha Sharma in late Saturday night rejected all the objections raised by Congress and BJP candidates on each other.
In Rae Bareli, a total of 34 candidates had filed their nominations but 19 papers were rejected and now 15 are left in the fray. (UNI)
