Petition Filed In SC To Bar Rahul Gandhi From Contesting Lok Sabha Polls Till Citizenship Issue Is Sorted

A plea filed by advocate Barun Kumar Sinha in Supreme Court (SC) has sought to direct the Centre and the Election Commission (EC) to disallow Rahul Gandhi from contesting the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, till his citizenship issue is cleared, reports Press Trust of India.

The plea has been marked as an urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta, Sanjiv Khanna. It is scheduled to be heard next week.

The petitioners Jai Bhagwan Goyal and C P Tyagi in their plea questioned the inaction of the Centre and expressed dissatisfaction that the poll panel allowed Rahul Gandhi to contest the Lok Sabha elections despite receiving communication from BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in November 2015 over his alleged British citizenship.

Acting on the plea, the Home Ministry served a notice to Gandhi asking him to clarify his position on a complaint received questioning his citizenship within a fortnight. The letter also seeks details of the company named Backops Limited, registered in the United Kingdom in 2003 with Rahul Gandhi as one of its directors.

The company in its annual returns in filed 2005 and 2006 showed Rahul Gandhi’s date of birth as 19 June 1970 and his nationality as British.

Rahul Gandhi is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Wayanad in Kerala and Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.