Congress seeks rejection of AAP’s Rajya Sabha candidate

The objection filed by Congress’s Delhi chief, Ajay Maken claimed that Narain Dass Gupta was ineligible for candidature as he holds the office of a trustee of the government-owned National Pension System Trust.

Congress on Saturday filed an objection to the nomination of AAP’s Rajya Sabha candidate, Narain Dass Gupta, for allegedly holding an office of profit.

AAP’s Rajya Sabha candidate Narain Dass Gupta. (HT File Photo)

The AAP, however, was quick to dismiss the charge which they termed as Congress’ attempt to gain ‘cheap publicity’ and said the law doesn’t bar trustees from contesting.

The objection filed by Congress’s Delhi chief, Ajay Maken, with the returning officer (district magistrate, central) claimed that Gupta was ineligible for candidature as he holds the office of a trustee of the government-owned National Pension System Trust.

AAP claimed Gupta had resigned from the post before filing his nomination. “He (Narain Dass Gupta) was appointed as a trustee of government-owned Rs 1.75 lakh crore National Pension Scheme Trust. He still holds this office of profit as on date and is ineligible to contest,” Maken said in the complaint filed on the day of scrutiny of the Rajya Sabha candidates.

Gupta, along with Sanjay Singh and Sushil Gupta, two other Rajya Sabha candidates of AAP, had filed nomination papers for the Upper house on January 4. Maken said Gupta’s nomination was liable to be rejected under Section 36 of Representation of Peoples Act, 1951, read with Article 102 of the Constitution.

In his response to the returning officer, Gupta said he has resigned from the trust last year before filing nominations for Rajya Sabha. Soon after the response, Congress filed a supplementary complaint in which the party alleged that Gupta held the office of the chairman of the Audit Committee of the National Pension System Trust having a corpus of ₹1.75 crore.

“The returning officer has issued a fresh notice to ND Gupta seeking as to why his nomination shouldn’t be cancelled,” said Aman Panwar of Delhi Congress’ legal cell. In case the nomination is cancelled, there will be a by-election in a months time.

After a day-long hearing, the matter was deferred to Monday. AAP spokesperson Raghav Chadha rejected Maken’s allegation accusing Congress of trying to gain “cheap publicity” through “frivolous” objections as the law exempts trustees in the office of the profit category bar.

“Section 3, clause (L) of Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959, gives exemption to trustee from disqualification under office of profit,” Chadha tweeted.