The nomination of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate from Barmer, Pankaj Choudhary, an IPS officer who was dismissed from the service last month, was rejected on Wednesday for lack of requisite electoral documents.
District Election Officer Himanshu Gupta said, “The nomination of BSP candidate Pankaj Choudhary was rejected as it lacked important documents that needed to be enclosed.”
Reacting to the development, the 44-year-old alleged his nomination was rejected under a “political conspiracy”. “I will challenge the decision in the Rajasthan High Court.”
Pankaj Choudhary, who was sacked from the Indian Police Service on March 6 for violating service rules, was fielded by the Mayawati-led party. He filed his nomination papers on April 8.
Dismissal on “Family reasons”
He said that under Section 9 of the Representation of the People Act (RPA) 1951, he had to submit to the election officer a certificate issued by the Election Commission that he was not dismissed for corruption or for disloyalty to the State.
According to the Section 9 of RPA 1951, any person dismissed from an office under the Centre or state government for corruption or for disloyalty to the state is barred from contesting elections for a period of five years from the date dismissal.
Pankaj Choudhary claimed he was dismissed from the service for “family reasons” and, therefore, this clause did not apply to him.
He also said that he had on April 1 applied for the required certificate and Election Commission officials had told him it will be issued within the stipulated time period. But it didn’t come, he said.
Rajasthan has 25 Lok Sabha seats and polling in 13 constituencies will take place on April 29 and remaining 12 on May 6. The Barmer constituency, which has 19.32 lakh voters, will go to polls in on April 29.
Pankaj Choudhary was dismissed on March 6 for allegedly having an extramarital relationship, which, as per his dismissal order, violated rule 3 (1) of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968.
