Shimla:

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Kangana Ranaut, the BJP Lok Sabha member from Mandi, on a petition filed by a Kinnaur resident for setting aside her election on the grounds that his nomination papers to contest from the Lok Sabha constituency were allegedly wrongly rejected.

Issuing the notice, Justice Jyotsna Rewal directed Ms Ranaut to file a reply by August 21.

Ms Ranaut had won the Mandi Lok Sabha seat, defeating her rival Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh by 74,755 votes. She had polled 5,37,002 votes against Singh’s 4,62,267 votes.

Pleading for setting aside the election of Ms Ranaut, the petitioner, Layak Ram Negi, maintained that his nomination papers were wrongly rejected by the returning officer (Deputy Commissioner, Mandi) and also made him a party.

Negi, an ex-employee of the forest department, said that he got premature retirement and produced a “no dues certificate” from the department along with nomination papers to the returning officer.

However, he was given a day to produce the “no due certificate” from the electricity, water, and telephone departments and when he submitted them, the returning officer did not accept them and rejected the nomination papers.

He pleaded that he could have won the election had his papers been accepted and said that the election be set aside. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday launched a blistering attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said that the ruling party won’t get more than 230 seats in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Speaking at Aam Aadmi Party’s headquarters in Delhi a day after his release on interim bail, Mr Kejriwal also claimed that the opposition INDIA bloc will win the elections and the AAP will be part of the next government at the Centre.

“In the last 20 hours after release from jail, I talked to poll experts and people, and got to know the BJP is not going to form the government,” he said.

Arvind Kejriwal said that the BJP’s Lok Sabha seats will decrease in Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Delhi, Bihar, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. “Their seats won’t increase in any state,” he said.

“It is my analysis and even political analysts are saying that the BJP won’t get more than 220-230 seats. The Modi government is not being formed on June 4,” Mr Kejriwal added.

#ElectionsWithNDTV | “BJP won’t cross 220-230 seats”: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal#LokSabhaElections2024pic.twitter.com/r9dRe95uOI

— NDTV (@ndtv) May 11, 2024

#ElectionsWithNDTV | “INDIA Alliance Government Will Be Formed At The Centre”: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal#LokSabhaElections2024pic.twitter.com/lNVHb5Kq11

— NDTV (@ndtv) May 11, 2024

He also promised that full statehood would be provided to Delhi when the INDIA bloc government will be formed.

Responding to Mr Kejriwal’s remarks, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said, “When the AAP leader is giving so many seats to his party despite being so full of hate for it, it means the ruling alliance can fetch around double the tally predicted by him.”

“PM Modi Will Retire Next Year”

Arvind Kejriwal said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is asking for votes for Amit Shah, claiming the Union Home Minister will be his successor after he “retires” on turning 75.

“These people (BJP leaders) ask the INDIA bloc about their (PM) face. I am asking the BJP who will be their PM. Modi Ji is turning 75 on September 17 next year. He had made the rule that people aged 75 would be retired. They retired LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Sumitra Mahajan,” he told the AAP supporters.

“Modi will retire next year. He is seeking votes for making Amit Shah the prime minister. Will Shah fulfill Modiji’s guarantee?” he asked.

आप सब लोगों के बीच वापस लौट कर मुझे बेहद ख़ुशी हो रही है। हमें मिलकर अपने देश को तानाशाही से बचाना है, मैं अपनी पूरी ताक़त से लड़ूँगा, मुझे देश के 140 करोड़ लोगों का समर्थन चाहिए। https://t.co/QbUWA5dBHF

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) May 11, 2024

Mr Kejriwal also claimed that if the BJP wins the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, all opposition leaders including Mamata Banerjee, Tejashvi Yadav, MK Stalin, Pinarayi Vijayan and Uddhav Thackeray, will be jailed.

The Supreme Court on Friday granted Mr Kejriwal interim bail in a money laundering case linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam to enable him to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections. The Supreme Court has asked him to surrender on June 2, a day after the last phase of the seven-phase poll is scheduled to get over.