Election of BJP MLA set aside for second time, from same seat

The Madhya Pradesh High Court today invalidated the election of BJP's Dhar MLA Neena Verma on the ground of lacunae in her nomination papers.
This is for the second time that the high court has set aside Verma's election, that too from the same seat.
Justice Alok Verma of the Indore bench of the high court, however, stayed his order for 45 days, after her lawyers prayed for time to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.
Neena is the wife of former Union minister and senior BJP leader Vikram Verma.
Today's HC order came on a petition filed by Sureshchandra Bhandari, a tax consultant who is a registered voter in the Dhar constituency, challenging her election.

As many as 24 columns in Neena's affidavit attached to the nomination papers were not filled, and the petitioner's lawyer Ajay Kumar Gangwal alleged there were discrepancies in other documents too.

She was also alleged to have furnished contradictory information about the value of her properties.
Neena Verma had won the Dhar seat by defeating her Congress rival by 11,482 votes.
In the previous Assembly election of 2008, she had defeated the Congress candidate by a margin of one vote from the same seat.
Balmukund Gautam, the defeated candidate, then moved the high court, claiming postal ballots had been manipulated. The HC had upheld his case, and nullified Verma's election.