BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday declared the November 2024 election of first-time Congress MLA Mukesh Malhotra from the Vijaypur constituency as “null and void” for concealing information about criminal cases in his poll affidavit.
In a battle of turncoats, Malhotra, an ex-BJP leader who joined the Congress ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, had pulled off a giant-killing act by defeating Madhya Pradesh’s forest minister Ramniwas Rawat (a five-time former Congress MLA) by over 7,300 votes in the November 2024 by-election to the Vijaypur seat in Sheopur district.
Hearing a petition filed by former MLA and losing candidate Ramniwas Rawat, the single-judge bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, Justice GS Ahluwalia, declared Malhotra’s 2024 election “null and void”.
The court also declared BJP candidate Ramniwas Rawat as “elected”, as he had finished runner-up in the by-election.
Rawat had challenged Malhotra's victory in the High Court, alleging that he had concealed details of criminal cases pending against him in his poll affidavit.
According to the petitioner BJP leader’s counsel, MPS Raghuvanshi, “The country’s top court has repeatedly said that public representatives must submit an affidavit along with their nomination forms before contesting elections, disclosing information about their criminal records. The information about four criminal cases given by Malhotra was incomplete and details about some other cases were not disclosed at all. The High Court has cancelled Mukesh Malhotra’s election and declared Ramniwas Rawat, who stood second in the by-election, as the winner.”
The High Court has given Malhotra one week to challenge the order in a higher court, while a possible stay period of fifteen days is under consideration.
Importantly, the November 2024 by-election was necessitated by Rawat’s resignation as the five-time sitting Congress MLA in July 2024. This came three months after he ended his decades-long association with the Congress and joined the BJP ahead of the 2024 national elections. He had resigned from the Assembly shortly after being inducted into the Dr Mohan Yadav-led council of ministers as the state’s forest minister. Malhotra, too, had quit the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and joined the Congress.
Subsequently, the November 2024 by-election to the Vijaypur Assembly constituency witnessed a battle of turncoats, with former Congress MLA and then forest minister Ramniwas Rawat as the BJP candidate taking on ex-BJP leader Mukesh Malhotra as the Congress candidate.
Rawat, however, suffered a shock defeat in the by-poll, marred by large-scale violence, losing to Malhotra by 7,364 votes. He later resigned as the state’s forest minister.