Tej Bahadur Yadav's nomination from Varanasi cancelled, sacked BSF jawan says 'will move SC'

Dismissed BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav's nomination as Samajwadi Party candidate from Varanasi was cancelled on Wednesday by the Election Commission.

The poll panel had asked Yadav to get a no-objection certificate from the Border Security Force (BSF) and asked him to file his response by 11 am on Wednesday.

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.

Alleging that the Election Commission was acting on behest of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Yadav said that he will approach the Supreme Court to challenge the cancellation of his nomination from Varanasi.

“My nomination has been rejected wrongly. I was asked to produce the evidence at 6.15pm yesterday, we produced the evidence, still my nomination was rejected. We will go to the Supreme Court,” said Yadav.

Yadav, a former BSF constable, 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 SP, 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.