Tej Bahadur Yadav, sacked BSF jawan, moves Supreme Court against EC cancelling his candidature from Varanasi

Tej Bahadur Yadav, the sacked BSF jawan and Samajwadi Party’s candidate from Varanasi, moved the Supreme Court on Monday challenging the Election Commission’s decision to cancel his candidature to contest the polls from the constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also contesting. Yadav, in his plea, termed the decision of the poll panel discriminatory and unreasonable and said it should be set aside. Yadav alleged that the Election Commission was acting on behest of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Yadav was dismissed from the service in 2017 after uploaded a video on social media complaining that poor quality food was being served to the troops in the icy, mountainous region along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. He was later dismissed on the charge of indiscipline.

The Samajwadi Party, which is in an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, had earlier declared Shalini Yadav as its candidate from Varanasi, while the Congress has renominated Ajai Rai. Varanasi will go to polls in the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha election on May 19 and the last date for filing nomination is Monday.  

The Election Commission’s returning officer had rejected Yadav’s nomination papers citing his failure to submit a certificate that he was not sacked for either corruption or disloyalty.

In its letter, the poll panel had said that employees of the state or central government who have been dismissed for "corruption or disloyalty to the state" shall be disqualified from campaigning for a period of five years.

"A person who has been dismissed from service from state or central govt within last 5 years has to obtain a certificate from EC stating he/she hasn't been dismissed due to disloyalty or corruption. Certificate wasn't produced before 11am, so, the nomination was rejected," said District Magistrate, Varanasi. 

Following the cancellation of Yadav’s nomination, Samajwadi Party’s Shalini Yadav has been renominated as the joint candidate of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance.