AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Congress chief Shaktisinh Gohil on Sunday alleged the nomination form of the party's candidate from Surat Lok Sabha constituency was rejected at the behest of BJP which is "rattled" as it has sensed defeat in elections.
Terming the development as a "murder of democracy", Gohil said the Congress will file a petition in the Gujarat High Court against the Returning Officer's decision to cancel the nomination form of the party candidate Nilesh Kumbhani over alleged discrepancies in the signatures of proposers in the form.
Congress is pushed out of the poll fray from the Surat constituency as the nomination form of Suresh Padsala, the substitute candidate from Surat, was also invalidated.
In his order, Returning Officer Sourabh Pardhi said the four nomination forms submitted by Kumbhani and Padsala were rejected after prima facie, discrepancies were found in the signatures of the proposers, and they did not appear genuine.
"The BJP is rattled as it has realised that the situation is not favourable for them this time (in elections). It hatched a conspiracy to get the forms of Congress candidates cancelled by hook or by crook. Kumbhani was their target ever since he filed his nomination form because BJP sensed defeat in Surat seat," Gohil told a press conference.
He alleged that attempts were also made to threaten Kumbhani.
The senior Congress leader said the nomination form cannot be cancelled after the nomination form was filed solely on the proposers' claim that signatures in the form do not belong to them.
The proposers, in their affidavits, stated they had not signed the forms themselves, as per the Returning Officer.
Gohil also claimed that the nomination form of Aam Aadmi Party candidate from the Surat-East assembly seat in the 2022 elections was not cancelled even though two proposers had claimed that they had not signed his nomination form.
The returning officer had refused to cancel the nomination form, saying discrepancies in the proposers' signatures cannot be the basis for the cancellation of the form, claimed Gohil.
"At that time, the form was not rejected because the AAP candidate would have helped the BJP by splitting votes. But this time, our form was rejected at the behest of BJP because the ruling party realised that it was going to lose Surat seat in the Lok Sabha elections," the Congress leader said.
He sought the intervention of the Election Commission into the issue.
"This is a murder of democracy. We will file a petition in the High Court against this order (of the Returning Officer) and also knock on the doors of the Supreme Court if needed," said Gohil.
He said the returning officer should have taken the help of forensic experts to match the signatures of proposers in the nomination form and in their affidavits, which they submitted later claiming they had not signed the nomination form.
"The returning officer could have taken the help of handwriting experts to find out if the signatures in the form were genuine or forged. Moreover, the law does not have a provision to cancel the nomination form on this basis. The Election Commission can file a case of forgery if it wants, but it cannot cancel the form. Thus, Kumbhani's form has been cancelled illegally," said Gohil.
Dinesh Jodhani, the election agent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from Surat, Mukesh Dalal, had objected to the nomination forms of Kumbhani on Saturday, after which the returning officer granted time to the Congress candidate to appear before it on Sunday morning to present his case.
In his reply, Kumbhani submitted that the proposers had put their signatures in his presence, and their signatures should be examined by a handwriting expert.
They also should be cross-examined for the benefit of justice, he said.
The returning officer ordered the rejection of the nomination forms after considering the affidavits submitted by the proposers and related evidence and after ascertaining the identity of the proposers and ensuring they were not threatened or were under pressure.
Even the presence of the signatories was not found in the video footage examined at the request of the Congress candidate's lawyer, the Returning Officer stated.
The Congress is contesting 24 of 26 seats in Gujarat while two constituencies are allotted to AAP as per the seat-sharing deal.
