The Madhya Pradesh High Court has issued a notice to Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur on an election petition filed by a Bhopal-based journalist, who challenged her election on grounds that she had appealed for votes on religious grounds.
The single bench of Justice Vishal Dhagat issued the notice to Pragya Thakur on Thursday seeking her reply in four weeks. The next hearing has been scheduled for September 9.
Journalist Rakesh Dixit, filed the election petition in his capacity as a Bhopal voter. He sought setting aside of the election results of Bhopal constituency and to hold the winning candidate (Pragya Thakur) guilty of having committed corrupt practices of appealing for votes on religious grounds and/or undue influence under Section 123(3) of the Representation of Peoples Act, 1951 and making false statements about her rival candidates, defined as a corrupt practice within section 123(4) of the act.
“The petition has been filed in light of the undue influence exercised by the candidate over the voters of the Bhopal constituency, by appealing for votes on the grounds of religion, aggravating existing communal tensions and creating enmity between different religions as well as making false statements about her rival candidates, to affect their prospects in the Lok Sabha elections. All of these acts are defined as corrupt practices under Sections 123(3) and (4) of the 1951 Act,” Dixit told THE WEEK.
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The petition highlights various statements made by Pragya Thakur in the last week of April and first week of May 2019 after the announcement of her candidature for Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency by the BJP.
Among the most controversial statements were those about ex-ATS chief of Maharashtra Hemant Karkare, who was martyred during the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack. She also made statements on demolition of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and her role in the process.
She had also made several statements against rival candidate from Congress Digvijaya Singh, calling her contest against him as 'dharm yuddh'. The Election Commission of India had clamped a ban on her campaign for 48 hours on May 1. “I am a journalist with impeccable secular credentials and with a deep sense of moral obligation. To me, her (Pragya's) victory is a huge national shame. No country in the world, not even Pakistan, has ever elected a person being prosecuted for a heinous act of terrorism to its parliament. It would have been worse had the BJP Member of Parliament’s election gone unchallenged in a court of law," petitioner Dixit said in an article on a news website written immediately after he filed the petition in month of July. "None of Bhopal’s over 12 lakh voters has seen fit to challenge her election. Surprisingly, even the defeated Congress candidate and two-time chief minister Digvijaya Singh shied away from availing this routine legal recourse,” he had noted.
It may be mentioned that 17 Congress candidates and two voters, including Dixit, have challenged the elections of BJP candidates in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, in separate petitions filed in the MP High Court.
