Meenakshi Natarajan
NEW DELHI: Supreme Court on Thursday declined to stay the declaration of results of Rajya Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, but agreed to hear on Friday Congress candidate Meenakshi Natarajan’s plea challenging rejection of her candidature for non-disclosure of a pending criminal case against her.It was a desperate attempt by senior advocate A M Singhvi, who appeared for Natarajan, to convince a partial working day bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and A S Chandurkar to stay the declaration of results, but the court said it cannot interfere midway in an election process and that filing an election petition to challenge the election of a candidate is the only option.Singhvi sought urgent hearing and stay of declaration of results at least for 24 hours, saying this would facilitate effective hearing before the court to adjudicate validity of the returning officer’s decision to reject Natarajan’s candidature.The plea for urgent mentioning was opposed by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi who said the only option open for Natarajan is to file an election petition after the declaration of results on Thursday.Meanwhile, calling the rejection of RS nomination papers of Meenakshi Natarajan “seat chori” by BJP, Congress’ Rahul Gandhi said BJP finds it easier to “fix the election than to win it”.Rahul in a post shared on X said, “After Vote Chori and Sarkar Chori, the BJP-EC jugalbandi has finished the contest (in MP) before it has even begun, with Seat Chori.”
