Somnath Bharti, leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, filed a case in the Delhi High Court on Saturday, contesting the election of new BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj, claiming suspected corruption.
Both Mr. Somnath Bharti and Ms. Bansuri Swaraj competed for Lok Sabha seat in New Delhi.
“The petitioner secured 3,74,815 votes and [Ms.] Swaraj secured 4,53,185 votes as per the returning officer,” according to the plea. However, it noted that on May 25, when New Delhi went to the polls, Mr. Bharti saw Ms. Swaraj’s booth agents hand out booklets with her ballot number, portrait, election symbol, and a photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging them to vote for her. The petitioner claimed to have reported this to the returning officer, but in vain.
The appeal also stated that Ms. Swaraj’s spending went over the permissible budget for the Lok Sabha election, which is ₹95 lakh per candidate. “…few expenditures from her accounts were transferred from her personal expenditure accounts to that of her party i.e. BJP which is flagrant violation of the provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951,” according to the complaint.
In his petition, Mr. Bharti further alleged that Raaj Kumar Anand, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate from the New Delhi constituency, was “set up by Ms. Swaraj’s party to help their candidate.”
The plea will be heard by Justice Manmeet P.S. Arora on Monday, July 22.