Congress candidate from Indore joins BJP days before Lok Sabha election
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TNR Desk
The Congress suffered a major setback in Madhya Pradesh as its Lok Sabha candidate from Indore, Akshay Bam, dropped out of the race and joined the BJP exactly two weeks before the polling is to be conducted in the constituency on May 13 (2024).
Akshay Bam reached the Indore District Electoral Officer’s office along with BJP MLA Ramesh Mendola and retracted his candidacy.
The voting for the Indore Lok Sabha seat will take place in the fourth phase of the ongoing parliamentary elections on May 13. In all, 102 constituencies across 9 States and one Union Territory, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Jammu and Kashmir, will go to the polls in the fourth phase.
According to the Election Commission of India, the last date for filing nominations was on April 25 while the scrutiny of nominations was to take place on April 26. April 29 was the last date for the withdrawal of candidatures.
Earlier, the nomination of the Congress’ Lok Sabha candidate from Gujarat’s Surat, Nilesh Kumbhani, was rejected after the district returning officer prima facie found discrepancies in the signatures of the proposers. The nomination of the party’s substitute candidate for the seat, Suresh Padsala, was also rejected, leaving the party with no candidate in the city.
The four nomination forms submitted by Kumbhani and Padsala were rejected after “discrepancies” were found in the signatures of the proposers. The proposers, in their affidavits, said that they had not signed the forms themselves, said the order. The rejection of the candidature had ensured the BJP its first Lok Sabha poll victory even before the announcement of results. BJP’s Mukesh Dalal won the seat unopposed.
Gujarat Congress chief Shaktisinh Gohil claimed that the rejection of the party’s candidate’s nomination form for the Surat Lok Sabha constituency was orchestrated by the BJP. He said that the BJP is feeling threatened by the prospect of defeat in the elections.
