Tandon challenges Tewari’s election as Chandigarh MP in high court

Over two months after Congress leader Manish Tewari was elected as the member of Parliament from Chandigarh, his rival from BJP, Sanjay Tandon has moved the Punjab and Haryana high court, seeking to annul his election and declare him as the “rightful winner”.
Tewari had clinched the Chandigarh Parliamentary seat by a narrow margin of 2,504 votes. While he had polled 2.16 lakh votes, Tandon had got 2.14 lakh votes.
In his plea, Tandon accused Tewari and his supporters of “corrupt practices” to secure the election. Talking of the malpractices, Tandon listed distributing guarantee cards and posting videos that promised voters various financial incentives, such as ₹8,500 per month, ₹1 lakh salaries for the first job of every educated youth, loan waivers and a legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) based on the Swaminathan Formula.
The petition said “such corrupt practices” as defined under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act form part of the grounds for declaring the election of Tewari as void under Section 100 and 101 of the Act.
Tandon’s petition said during the campaign, Tewari, who had been set up by the Aam Admi Party and Indian National Congress as the INDIA bloc candidate, indulged in various acts of omission and commission, as various promises of a corrupt nature were made to target the innocent and poor voters.
That such practices consisted of the Congress Guarantee Cards, which were given to various voters residing in the colonies in order to sway their votes by offering the ₹1 lakh salary for every first job of every educated youth, ₹1 lakh every year to every woman from poor family, loan waiver and legal guarantee of MSP based on Swaminathan Formula and ₹400 per day as minimum wage in MNREGA.
Tandon through its petition claimed that the false monetary gain promises meted out by Tewari resulted in impacting the minds of the voters. “Believing these false promises to be true and thinking that they will be rewarded year after year, a sizeable section of gullible voters voted in favour of Tewari,” he contended.
“Since the election of the respondent (Tewari) is liable to be set aside for having indulged in corrupt practices, the only irresistible and inescapable conclusion is that the petitioner (Tandon) ought to be declared as elected,” read the petition.
The petition also pointed out that numerous complaints were filed by the BJP to the returning officer, but no action was taken beyond issuing a warning to the Congress Party on May 17, 2024.