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.)

Kolkata:

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Wednesday asserted the recent Lok Sabha poll results point to the fact that India is not a ‘Hindu Rashtra’.

Mr Sen, who arrived in Kolkata from the US in the evening, also expressed displeasure over the “continuation” of putting people behind bars “without trial” even under the new dispensation.

“That India is not a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ only has been reflected in the election results,” Mr Sen told a Bengali news channel at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here.

“We always hope to see a change after every election. Some of what happened earlier (during the BJP-led central government) like putting people behind bars without trial, and widening the gap between the rich and poor, are still continuing. That must stop,” he said.

The eminent economist said there is a need to be politically open-minded, especially when India is a secular country with a secular Constitution.

“I do not think the idea of turning India into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ is appropriate,” Mr Sen, 90, said.

He was also of the opinion that the new Union cabinet is “a copy of the earlier one”.

“The ministers continue to hold similar portfolios. Despite a slight reshuffle, the politically powerful are still powerful,” he said.

Mr Sen recalled that during his childhood when India was under the British rule, people were jailed without any trial.

“When I was young, many of my uncles and cousins were put in jail without trial. We had hoped that India would be free from this. Congress is also to blame for the fact that this did not stop. They didn’t change it… But, this is more in practice under the present government,” the Nobel laureate said.

On the BJP losing the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat despite building the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Mr Sen said attempts were made to overshadow the country’s true identity.

“… Building the Ram Temple spending so much money… to portray India as a ‘Hindu Rashtra’, which should not have happened in the country of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It shows an attempt to neglect India’s true identity, and it must change,” he said.

Mr Sen also said that unemployment was on the rise in India, and sectors like primary education and primary healthcare were being neglected.

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