HC reserves order on maintainability of election petition against PM

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday reserved its order on a plea challenging the maintainability of an election petition against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The election petition was filed by Tej Bahadur Yadav, a dismissed Border Security Force jawan. The Samajwadi Party had declared him its Varanasi candidate against Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

However, Yadav's nomination papers were rejected by the returning officer when he failed to submit a certificate from the BSF saying that he was not sacked for either corruption or disloyalty.

In his election petition, Yadav claimed that his papers were wrongly rejected, and he was not able to exercise his constitutional right and contest against the prime minister.

He had pleaded that Modi's election from Varanasi should be set aside.

Appearing on Modi's behalf, Satyapal Jain argued that the election petition is not maintainable as there is no allegation of malpractice in the polls.

Justice Manoj Gupta heard the counsels on both sides on this objection and reserved the order.