Kangana Ranaut's election from Mandi challenged in HC, notice issued

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the BJP MP Kangana Ranaut after a resident of Kinnaur filed a petition seeking to set aside her election from Mandi constituency.

The petitioner sought it 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.

PTI with edits