HC dismisses plea challenging BJP MP Pragya Thakur's election from Bhopal in 2019
Jabalpur (PTI): The Madhya Pradesh High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the election of Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha member Pragya Singh Thakur from Bhopal on grounds of giving "communal speeches" after neither the petitioner nor his counsel appeared in the case despite getting repeated opportunities.
A single bench of Justice Vishal Dhagat dismissed the plea on December 12 and also cited two previous cases in which the issued raised in the application had been settled.
"In view of aforesaid, since the petitioner is not appearing despite repeated opportunities being granted to him, therefore, the election petition is dismissed for want of prosecution," the judge said.
Bhopal resident Rakesh Dixit had filed the petition, alleging Thakur had given "communal speeches and incited religious sentiment" to win the 2019 Lok Sabha election in violation of section 123 of the Representation of the People Act.
The section deals with corrupt practices, which include appeal by a candidate or his/her agent to vote or refrain from voting for any person on the ground of religion, race, caste, community or language.
The HC noted the petitioner's counsel also did not appear in the court to argue in favour of the plea.
"None appeared for the petitioner on 11.10.2022, 23.11.2022 and on 29.11.2022. Despite the circular of cause list and knowledge of listing, counsel for the petitioner is not appearing in the case. Repeated opportunities were granted to the petitioner to argue the case on preliminary issue," according to the court order.
The court order mentioned two cases in which law on the issue had been settled - P Nalla Thampy Thera Dr Vs BL Shanker (AIR 1984 SC 135) and Punjab & Haryana 268-Gurmesh Bishnoi Vs Bhajan Lal (AIR 2003).
The petitioner, to buttress his accusations, had incorporated CDs of the BJP leader's speeches and clippings of news reports along with the plea.
Thakur defeated Congress stalwart and two-time chief minister Digvijaya Singh with a huge margin of 3,64,822 votes in 2019 from the Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, which the saffron party has been winning since 1989.
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India has agreed already to drop its tariffs to nothing: President Trump
New York/Washington, May 7 (PTI): US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said India has “agreed” to drop its high tariffs “to nothing”.
“I mean, India as an example, has one of the highest tariffs in the world. We’re not going to put up with that, and they’ve agreed already to drop it. They’ll drop it to nothing. They’ve already agreed. They would have never done that for anybody else but me,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Trump and visiting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to reporters as they met in the Oval Office to discuss the US-Canada trade.
“So we’re going to put down some numbers and we’re going to say our country is open for business and they’re going to come in and they’re going to pay for the privilege of being able to shop in the United States of America. It’s very simple. It’s very simple,” he added.
In the past, Trump has called India “tariff king” and a “big abuser”.
Last month, Trump had said that negotiations with India over a bilateral trade deal are “coming along great” and he thinks “we’ll have a deal with India”.
