The Delhi High Court on Monday pointed out several errors in AAP leader Somnath Bharti’s petition challenging the election of BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections over alleged corrupt practices, and asked him to file a corrected petition.
Judge Manmeet PS Arora said at the outset that there were many typographical errors that made it difficult to understand the allegations in the petition.
Even the reference to the defendants in the petition did not correlate with the defendants mentioned in the parties’ memorandum and synopsis, the attorney said.
The court gave Bharti 10 days to file a corrected petition and posted the matter for further hearing on August 14.
When Mr. Bharti’s lawyer urged the court to serve the respondents with the petition, the judge said, “There are too many errors. Correct the petition first. I cannot serve it this way. I will simply adjourn it. Please file a corrected petition.”
Both Mr Bharti and Ms Swaraj contested for the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat.
While Mr Bharti got 3,74,815 votes, Ms Swaraj got 4,53,185 votes according to the electoral officer, the statement said.
The petition, filed under sections 80 and 81 of the Representation of the People Act, alleged corrupt practices by Ms Swaraj, her election agent and others.
The suit also claims that former AAP minister Raaj Kumar Anand contested the elections on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket to help Swaraj reduce her vote share. Later on July 10, he joined the BJP, the suit said.
He said Mr Anand was a minister in the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi and was active in campaigning for Mr Bharti till April 9 and suddenly quit the party on April 10.
On election day, the petitioner was surprised during his visits to polling booths across the constituency to see that Ms Swaraj’s booth agents were holding pamphlets displaying her ballot number, photo, electoral symbol and photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and “were showing the same to the voters who had lined up at the booth to vote and asking them to vote for Ticket No. 1,” the petition stated.
“…such an act certainly qualifies as a corrupt practice. This was also reported to respondent No. 3 (electoral officer), but all in vain,” he alleged.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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