Lagatar24 Desk
Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh High Court has issued a notice to Kangana Ranaut, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Lok Sabha member from Mandi, in response to a petition challenging her election. The petition was filed by Kinnaur resident Layak Ram Negi, who claims that his nomination papers were wrongly rejected.
Justice Jyotsna Rewal, presiding over the case, directed Ms. Ranaut to file a reply by August 21.
Kangana Ranaut won the Mandi Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 74,755 votes, defeating Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh. She secured 5,37,002 votes, while Singh received 4,62,267 votes.
The petitioner, Layak Ram Negi, an ex-employee of the forest department, argued that his nomination papers were unjustly rejected by the returning officer, who is also the Deputy Commissioner of Mandi. Negi stated that he had taken premature retirement and submitted a “no dues certificate” from his department along with his nomination papers.
However, he was subsequently instructed to provide “no dues certificates” from the electricity, water, and telephone departments within a day. Despite submitting these certificates, the returning officer allegedly refused to accept them, leading to the rejection of Negi’s nomination papers.
Negi contends that he had a viable chance of winning the election if his papers had been accepted and is seeking to have Ms. Ranaut’s election set aside.
