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| Harsh Dev challenges Assembly Election of Chenani constituency | | Election Tribunal issues notices to ECI, RO, J&K Govt, Mankotia, others | |  Early Times Report
JAMMU, Nov 30: Hon'ble Justice Rajneesh Oswal today directed issuance of notices to Election Commission of India, Chief Electoral officer J&K, UT of J&K, Home Department, Returning Officer Chenani Assembly constituency, returned candidate Balwant Mankotia besides several others including the Returned candidate from the said constituency in an Election Petition filed by the JKNPP India candidate Harsh Dev Singh who challenged the said election and sought declaration of the said election as null and void and setting aside the same. A battery of lawyers including Aseem Sawhney, Tehsina Bukhari, Raj Pratap Singh, Mohd Kashiv, Mohit Mankotia, Yasin Tak and Pallav Sharma appeared for the petitioner.
Arguing the case for the petitioner, Aseem Sawhney stated that the Chenani assembly election had been vitiated due to large scale corrupt practices, bribery, undue influence, use of religion for votes, promoting hatred amongst classes on ground of religion, false and mischievous publications, dis-information, use of govt servants and govt machinery in elections, bias and prejudice of tainted officers in the conduct of elections, concealment of material facts in the Affidavit beside improper acceptance of the Affidavit of Returned Candidate by the RO alleged to have given overt and covert support to the Returned Candidate.
Pointing towards the faulty Affidavit submitted by the Returned Candidate, the petitioner said that despite defects of "substantial nature" as enumerated by ECI and concealment of material facts therein including non-disclosure of complete details of Assets and Liabilities, suppression of information regarding dues to govt, the nomination form of the Returned candidate was liable to be rejected. Quoting section 100(1)(d)(1) of RP Act, Harsh Dev maintained that the improper acceptance of the nomination form of the Returned candidate which had substantial defects as stated "ECI in guidelines and Apex Court rulings" making it a faulty, defective and incomplete affidavit and hence the election was liable to be set aside.
The lawyers for petitioner further argued that the bribery of voters in Chenani Election was unprecedented in the historyof Indian elections wherein returned candidate and his supporters distributedsarees, Suits, Umbrellas, T-shirts, under garments, bags besides cash andliquor to the voters on a massive scale. Several complaints in this regard fellflat with the concerned authorities maintaining a cold silence and directly andindirectly supporting the official BJP candidate i.e. the returned candidate. Therespondent no.5 to 9 i.e. police officers and RO openly assisted thereturned candidate and facilitated free movement of cash, liquor, sarees suits T-shirts and bagsby them while intimidating, threatening, persecuting and arresting JKNPP Indiaworkers/supporters. That the workers of JKNPP India were threatenedof physical elimination by the BJP candidate of the Chenani assemblyconstituency who further assured his workers thatnothing would happen to them if they chopped the heads of Panthersworkers. Repeated complaints of bribery, corrupt practices and threats madetorespondents ECI/CEO J&K in this regard were downplayed with no action whatsoever taken by the concerned authorities, asserted the petitioner.
The Petitioner, Harsh Dev Singh who is also a practising lawyer, had taken the plea that the Returned candidate resorted to 'Undue influence' as defined in Section 123 RP Act by issuing threats of injury, by using religion and promoting hatred amongst classes on grounds of religion. The petitioner while referring to some video interviews of returned candidate and his social media posts claimed that a malicious, highly malevolent and pernicious vilification campaign was launched against him by the returned candidate and his personal character and conduct was called in question to prejudicially affect his electoral prospects thereby attracting the provisions of Section 123(4) of RP Act. The petitioner said that he was not only dubbed as anti-national, pro- Pakistani, member of Gupkar gang, Pakistan sponsored candidate, supporter of Hijbul Mujahiddin and Palestnian Mujahiddin, 'terrorist gang' but his (petitioner's) blood and DNA was also questioned and challenged. Such false malicious propaganda and character assassination of the petitioner unleashed on a massive scale completed altered the political narrative in the constituency thereby most prejudicially affecting the Election results against the petitioner and in favour of the returned candidate. The returned candidate all along gave the impression through his social media posts and interviews that he(returned candidate) was a nationalist and petitioner as anti-national and supporter of terrorists.
Further, the petitioner claimed that threats of sexual assault and molestation of mothers and sisters of opposition workers and voters were given by the agents/workers of BJP which had been duly recorded and submitted in the Court in the form of a pen drive.
It was further argued that several govt. employees and officers were deployed to openly campaign for the BJP candidate whose campaign photographs and social media posts were also openly circulated but no cognizance taken by a biased administration. The petitioner stated that the hired media including 'JK Media', 'Digital Reporter', 'Khabar Jammu Kashmir' and other local media supported the vilification campaign of the BJP candidate directly describing the petitioner as 'terror supporter', 'anti-national' besides giving their judgements even prior to the conduct of Elections in favour of the BJP candidate.
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