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The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Saturday dismissed a plea by Congress leader Moti Singh Patel seeking to overturn the rejection of his candidature and its acceptance by the polling body as the Congress candidate from the Lok Sabha constituency.
Earlier, Akshay Bam who had filed his nomination from the Congress party pulled out his nomination at the last moment when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. Apart from Bam, Patel had also filed his nomination but the returning officer cancelled his nomination during scrutiny. Patel had challenged the elections and filed a petition in the Indore High Court requesting to overturn the rejection of his candidature and declare him as the Congress candidate from Indore. However, the single-judge bench dismissed his petition following which he challenged it before the two-judge bench. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced incumbent Member of Parliament Shankar Lalwani as its candidate. With Bam's candidature, the Congress tried to put a young face in the battle with the hope of penetrating the BJP's bastion where the BJP has been invincible for the past several years. Lok Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh are being conducted in four phases. The first phase of polling was held on April 19 and the second phase was concluded on April 26. The next two phases will be conducted on May 7 and May 13. The counting of votes will be held on June 4. A total of nine parliamentary constituencies- Morena, Bhind, Gwalior, Guna, Sagar, Vidisha, Bhopal, Rajgarh and Betul- will go to the polls in the third phase on May 7. On the other hand, eight constituencies - Dewas, Ujjain, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Dhar, Indore, Khargone and Khandwa- will go to the polls in the fourth and the last phase in the state on May 13. With 29 Lok Sabha constituencies, Madhya Pradesh ranks sixth among all states in terms of its representation in the Lower House. Of these, 10 seats are reserved for SC and ST candidates, while the remaining 19 are unreserved. (ANI)
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