Tej Bahadur Yadav's nomination for Varanasi rejected, says will move SC

The nomination filed by former BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav to contest elections from Varanasi constituency has been rejected by the Election Commission of India. Yadav, who was dismissed from service in 2017 for allegedly making false complaints about food quality, had filed his papers on Monday as a candidate of the Samajwadi Party.

Varanasi: The nomination of former BSF constable and Samajwadi Party candidate Tej Bahadur Yadav, who filed his papers against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, was rejected on Wednesday after he failed to submit a certificate.

The Returning Officer (RO) Surendra Singh on Tuesday had issued a notice to Yadav, asking him about to submit the certificate whether or not he was dismissed from the service for corruption or disloyalty to the government.

"You have not submitted the certificate to the effect that whether or not you were dismissed from the service for corruption or disloyalty with your nomination papers. You are directed through this notice to submit the aforementioned certificate till 11 am on May 1, 2019, "the notice issued on Tuesday read.

Yadav, however, has alleged foul play and said that he would knock the doors of the Supreme Court on Thursday.

"My nomination has been rejected wrongly. I was asked to produce a certificate at 6.15 pm on Tuesday. We produced the evidence, but my nomination was rejected," he said.

"We will move to the Supreme Court on Thursday," his lawyer said.

Yadav alleged that the RO, also the district magistrate of Varanasi, of being under pressure."DM Sahab is under pressure," he said.

Singh said, "A person who has been dismissed from service from state or Central governments within the last five years has to obtain a certificate that he or she has not been dismissed due to disloyalty or corruption. The certificate was not produced before 11 am. So the nomination was rejected."

Yadav alleged that he was given a very short period to submit the certificate.

"I told the RO that I am not Ambani or Adani who will go by a chartered plane to Delhi for the certificate. However, I produced the certificate but they rejected it in an authoritative manner. They said that I could not produce the certificate before 11 am," said Yadav.

He also alleged a conspiracy against him. "It is just a conspiracy against us. Modi Ji is scared. It has been done intentionally," said Yadav, who was dismissed from the BSF in 2017 after complaining about the poor quality of food served to the soldiers in a video, which went viral.

Yadav had posted four videos on social media in January 2017, which showed him complaining about unpalatable food at his camp along Indo-Pakistan border in Jammu and Kashmir.

He was named as the Samajwadi Party candidate from Varanasi parliamentary constituency to take on Prime Minister Modi on Monday. Earlier, he was in the fray as an independent candidate.

Varanasi seat was won by Prime Minister Modi in the last Lok Sabha elections. He had defeated AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal with the massive margin of 3.37 lac votes.

The election in Varanasi is slated to take place in the last phase of seven-phased Lok Sabha elections on May 19. The counting of votes will begin on May 23.