The Gujarat High Court has issued summons to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Mukesh Dalal from the Surat Lok Sabha constituency. The summons are in response to two petitions challenging his uncontested victory in the recent elections. Justice J.C. Doshi, presiding over the court, directed Mr. Dalal to respond by August 9th after the matter was brought up for hearing on July 25th.
The lawyer representing the petitioners, P.S. Champaneri, stated that the petitions were filed by four voters from the Surat Parliamentary Constituency, who are also members of the Congress party. They are challenging the decision of the Surat Collector and returning officer to reject the nomination of Congress candidate Nilesh Kumbhani.
Mr. Dalal was declared the winner on April 22nd, the last day for withdrawing nominations, after Mr. Kumbhani’s nomination was rejected and other candidates withdrew from the race. This made him the first candidate to win a Lok Sabha seat unopposed in the last 12 years.
The petitions argue that the returning officer’s decision to reject Mr. Kumbhani’s nomination was based on faulty grounds. They claim that three proposers, who later denied signing Mr. Kumbhani’s nomination papers, had previously declared in an application before the deputy collector that they would be signing as proposers on his nomination form. This declaration was made while applying for a certificate declaring them voters of the same constituency, which is a prerequisite for proposers.
The petitioners further contend that the verification of signatures is not the responsibility of the Collector. They emphasize that the Congress, being a national party, wouldn’t have any shortage of proposers for its candidates in any given constituency.
The petitioners have questioned the legality and validity of the decision to reject Mr. Kumbhani’s nomination under the provisions of Section 36 of the Representation of the People Act, which governs the scrutiny of nomination forms.
The remaining 25 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat went to poll on May 7th in the third phase of the general elections. The BJP won all 25 seats in the state, with the Congress winning only one. Mr. Dalal’s uncontested victory was the first win for the BJP in the recently concluded general elections, whose results were declared on June 4th.
District Collector and election officer Saurabh Pardhi handed the certificate of election to Mr. Dalal on April 22nd, just before the nomination withdrawal deadline. Mr. Kumbhani’s nomination was rejected based on discrepancies in the signatures of his proposers, who later submitted an affidavit claiming they had not signed the papers.
