HC declares MP Assembly election of Uma Bharti's nephew Rahul Lodhi as void
Jabalpur (PTI): The Madhya Pradesh High Court has set aside and declared void the 2018 election of Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rahul Singh Lodhi as Member of Legislative Assembly from Khargapur constituency after finding him at fault for furnishing wrong information in his nomination papers.
Strict action must be taken against the Returning Officer who went "out of her way to accept the nomination paper to favour Lodhi," a single bench of Justice Nandita Dubey said in its last month's order which was made available on Wednesday.
Rahul Singh Lodhi is the son of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti's elder brother Harval Lodhi.
Chanda Singh Gour, the Congress candidate who lost the 2018 poll to Lodhi, had filed an election petition under relevant provisions of the Representation of the People (RP) Act, challenging the BJP leader's election from Kharagpur Assembly seat in MP's Tikamgarh district.
The high court in its order said the election of respondent Rahul Singh Lodhi as Member of the Legislative Assembly from Khargapur Assembly constituency is "set aside and declared void".
As the election of the respondent is being declared void, he, therefore, must not be allowed any benefits of this election, the court said.
Clearly there is a failure of duty and violation of statutory provisions under the RP Act by the Returning Officer, who "went out of her way to accept the nomination paper to favour Rahul Singh Lodhi," the HC said.
For non-compliance and violation of the procedure and rules, strict action must be taken against the Returning Officer and in future she must not be assigned any duty of similar nature, it said.
Resultantly, this petition is allowed, the court said.
According to the petitioner, the respondent suppressed in his nomination paper the fact that the HC had earlier imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on him and further not given the cost to the petitioner and thus, guilty of non-compliance of the court order.
The petitioner further alleged the respondent's nomination papers were improperly accepted, which materially affected the result of the election.
It is alleged that the respondent submitted two nomination forms, with different information regarding his status as partner in the firm M/s R S Constructions, Tikamgarh, having contract with MPRRDA, which amounts to corrupt practices as enumerated under provisions of the RP Act, the court said.
The petitioner's counsel, Rajmani Mishra, said the court has allowed both the issues in favour of the petitioner.
He said the order was issued on November 9.
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FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.
The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.
Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.
What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.
"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,
which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.
"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.
"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.
"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.
In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.
The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.
With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.
Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).
