HC dismisses plea against UP BJP MLA's election

Prayagraj (Uttar Pradesh) March 11 (IANS) The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the election of Ajeet Pal Singh, BJP MLA from the Sikandra Assembly segment in Kanpur Dehat in 2017.

Ajeet Pal Singh is a Minister for State (IT department) in the Yogi Adityanath government.

Dismissing the election petition filed by one Seema Sachan on Wednesday, Justice D.K. Singh observed, "The counsel for the petitioner has miserably failed in proving as to how the said non-providing of the copy of the required document to polling agents by the presiding officers has resulted in materially affecting the election result of the returned candidate.

"It has also come on record that the margin of defeat is very huge as the winning candidate has won this election by securing 73,325 votes while the petitioner has just secured 61,455 votes and, therefore, it shows a difference of more than 10,000 votes."

Seema Sachan had contested the 2017 elections against Ajeet Pal Singh on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

The submission of the counsel for the petitioner was that the returning officer has acted against the mandatory provisions of the Representation of Peoples' Act in not providing required documents to the agents.

Secondly, the election of the winning candidate has been materially affected on account of improper reception of votes of the electronic voting machines (EVM), the seals of which were found tampered or broken at the time of counting.

However, while opposing the election petition, Bharat Pal Singh the counsel for the elected candidate, contended that the petition is devoid of merit, therefore, it deserves to be rejected.