Meenakshi Natarajan
NEW DELHI: Congress Rajya Sabha candidate Meenakshi Natarajan on Friday defended the information provided in her nomination papers, saying the dispute is over whether a legal notice should be treated as a pending criminal case under Form 26.She maintained that no criminal case is pending against her and that she had disclosed all relevant details to the Election Commission. Addressing a press conference in Delhi ahead of a Supreme Court hearing on her plea, Natarajan said she would refrain from discussing all aspects of the matter because it is currently under judicial consideration. She added that the dispute centres on Form 26, which requires candidates to disclose pending criminal cases and convictions.”Since the matter is sub-judice and is being heard in the Supreme Court today, I will not discuss all the points. But I will talk about one thing that is already in the public domain and is also present on the Election Commission’s website. The root of this entire matter is Form 26, in which it was claimed that I failed to record certain information and concealed facts,” she said.”The most important point, which started this entire issue, is that information must be provided if there is any pending criminal case, or if someone has been convicted of a punishable offence,” Natarajan added. Her remarks come after the Election Commission rejected her nomination for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh over allegations that she failed to disclose details of a case in Telangana in her affidavit.The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear her petition on Friday. While agreeing to hear the matter, the court on Thursday declined to stay the election process or the declaration of results.She maintained that no criminal case is pending against her and that only a legal notice had been issued in connection with a private complaint. “Naturally, I wrote ‘Not Applicable’ for all these things because there is only a legal notice against me, and I included the full legal details of that notice in the memorandum I submitted to the Election Commission. We will present that same point in the Supreme Court today as well,” she said.”There is only that single legal notice which the court has not even taken cognisance of yet. Therefore, there should be clarity on where the column to record such information actually was. Form 26 did not contain any column stating that information regarding a random private complaint must also be provided. If there had been such a column, we would have provided the information from our end,” she added.The controversy began after BJP candidate Mahesh Kewat objected to Natarajan’s nomination, alleging that she had failed to disclose details of a pending case in Telangana. The Returning Officer subsequently rejected her nomination.The Congress has argued that no formal criminal case exists against Natarajan and that a notice issued in a private complaint does not amount to a pending criminal case requiring disclosure. The BJP, however, maintains that Supreme Court guidelines require such information to be disclosed once court proceedings reach a stage where notices have been issued.The rejection has altered the political equations for the Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP is already assured of winning two of the three seats and has strengthened its prospects for securing the third seat as well.
