High Court Issues Notice to Kangana Ranaut As Her Election From Mandi Challenged

Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh High Court issued notice to Kangana Ranaut, the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Mandi, on Wednesday, 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.

The High Court directed Ranaut to file a reply by August 21.

Ranaut defeated her rival Congress candidate Vikramaditya Singh by 74,755 votes to win from the Mandi Lok Sabha seat.

The petitioner, Layak Ram Negi, in his petition claimed that his nomination papers were wrongly rejected by the returning officer (Deputy Commissioner, Mandi). The petitioner has also made the returning officer a party in the case.

Negi, an former 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. But 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 prayed that the election be set aside.