Errors have reportedly crept into annexures of the election affidavit filed by Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the BJP candidate for the Thiruvananthapuram seat.
Mr. Chandrasekhar has filed “Annexures to affidavit for Rajya Sabha Nomination 2024-As on 29/02/2024” in Annexure No 1, Form 26 Self, Column No 7 (2) that was submitted along with his nomination papers.
The candidate has provided the details of his deposits in bank accounts in the annexure.
Anju Chandrasekhar, the spouse of the candidate, has also provided the annexures to the “Affidavit for Rajya Sabha Nomination 2024- as on 29/02/2024” in the Annexure No 7, Form 26 Spouse Column No. 7 (2). She has provided the details of her bank accounts in the document, which was submitted as part of the nomination paper.
The affidavit can be downloaded from the site of the Election Commission of India.
Mr. Chandrasekhar has given the number and name of the Constituency and the State as “S. No 319 in Part No. 118 of the Electoral Roll For BTM Layout, Karnataka Legislative Assembly” in Part B of the annexure.
When contacted, J. R. Padmakumar, the BJP leader and the Election-in-Charge of Mr. Chandrasekhar, dismissed the reported mistakes as negligible typographic errors, which according to him, had no bearing on the validity of the nomination paper.
“Candidates often wrongly enter the name and number of the constituency from which they are contesting in Part B of the annexure, where the consolidated version of the details provided in Part A of the affidavit has to be given. There are no entries in Part A regarding the number and name of the constituency and the State from which a candidate is contesting. The details provided in Part A of the Affidavit matters. There has not been any suppression of facts in the affidavit filed by the candidate and hence it’s a valid one, he said.
Sanjay Kaul, Chief Electoral Officer, Kerala, said the legal remedy available in the case was to file an election petition before the Kerala High Court. Once the election process has been set into motion and the nomination accepted after scrutiny, which is a quasi-judicial process, the Election Commission cannot intervene. A judicial review was the only permissible remedy, he said.
