BJP’s Mukesh Dalal won unopposed from Surat seat in the Lok Sabha elections.
The Gujarat High Court has issued summons to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Mukesh Dalal on two petitions challenging his uncontested victory from the Surat Lok Sabha seat. Justice JC Doshi’s court has issued summons to the broker and asked it to respond by August 9. The case recently came up for hearing on July 25. Petitioners’ lawyer PS Champaneri gave this information on Sunday.
Mukesh Dalal was declared the winner on April 22, the last date for withdrawal of nominations, after Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbhani’s nomination was rejected and other candidates withdrew from the race. Apart from the Surat seat, the remaining 25 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat went to polls in the third phase of the general elections on May 7. In Gujarat, including Surat, the BJP won 25 seats while the Congress got only one seat.
4 voters applied from Surat
On behalf of the petitioners, the validity of the decision of the District Magistrate and Returning Officer, Surat, to reject the nomination of Nilesh Kumbhani was challenged. 2 petitions filed by 4 voters of Surat Parliamentary Constituency, who are also Congress workers, question the Returning Officer’s decision to reject Kumbhani’s form under Section 36 of the Representation of the People Act regarding verification of nomination forms.
The petitioners have also claimed that the 3 proposals of Kumbhani, who later refused to sign his nomination form, declared in an application before the Deputy Collector that he would not sign his nomination form as a proposal. He did this while applying for a certificate declaring voters from the same constituency, which is a pre-condition for proposers.
In the petition, the petitioner made arguments
Moreover, it is not the Collector’s job to verify the signatures, he also argued that the Congress is a national party and therefore has no dearth of proposers for candidates in any constituency.
Dalal became the first candidate to win the Lok Sabha elections unopposed in the last 12 years. This uncontested result was in BJP’s favor before the counting of votes on June 4. On April 22, District Collector and Election Officer Saurabh Pardhi handed over the victory certificate to Dalal as candidates withdrew their nomination papers at the last moment.
The nomination of Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbhani was rejected due to discrepancies in the signatures of his proposers, who filed an affidavit stating that they had not signed the papers. The nomination of his dummy candidate Suresh Padsala was also declared invalid for the same reason.
