New Delhi, April 27 (IANS) Aam Aadmi Party's South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha on Saturday moved the Delhi High Court, seeking disqualification of his BJP rival and sitting MP Ramesh Bidhuri's candidature.
"He has concealed an FIR pending against him in the affidavit. Concealment of a criminal case is serious offence and I am sure his nomination will be rejected as soon as the court looks into the matter," Chadha told the media here after filing a writ petition.
Saying Bidhuri's candidature likely to be disqualified within 30 days, he appealed to the voters of South Delhi to "not waste their vote by voting for Bidjuri".
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said the incident of some BJP leaders beating, abusing and harassing members of the Purvanchal Morcha from their own party had recently come to light, "which exposed the strong anti-Purvanchal sentiment harboured by the BJP".
"An FIR was thereafter lodged against Bidhuri in Bihar. Fearing a backlash over the anti-Purvanchal face of the BJP, Bidhuri purposefully refused to mention the FIR in his affidavit," he alleged.
Chadha had also approached the Election Commission regarding the serious and criminal offence of a candidate omitting information about pending FIRs against them.
"Any person who is unable to furnish true details about themselves and seeks to hide crucial information is not fit to be a Member Of Parliament as per the Election Commission Protocol," Sisodia added.
In response to Chadha's objections, Bidhuri told the EC that he had no prior information regarding the said FIR.
However, the AAP dismissed his defence.
"News of the FIR in December 2018 was published in several newspapers and his personal Facebook page had also been tagged with this information.
"Further, the information regarding the FIR against him was also brought to his notice by an advocate of AAP during the court proceedings of a defamation case that took place several months back," Chadha said.
Sisodia said Bidhuri tried to withhold this crucial information from his affidavit and then pressurise the Election Commission to accept his nomination and it was against this, they moved the court and were hopeful it would act to reject Bidhuri's nomination.
Delhi Chief Minister and AAP Convenor Arvind Kejriwal also said, in a tweet, that South Delhi's voters should not waste their votes on the BJP and its candidate.
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