A bench headed by Justice S.A. Bobde in the Supreme Court will hear the plea filed by BJP advocate and spokesperson Ashwini Kumar Upadhyaya after two weeks. The Petitioner and the advocate has filed a petition asking to bar a candidate from contesting in two assembly or parliamentary constituencies during the elections. The Supreme court on Wednesday agreed to examine the petition.
The Election commission said that it favors the proposal by the advocate to bar a candidate form contesting from two seats but the center justifies such a provision of law.
According to the Representation of People Act Section 33(7), 1951, a person is allowed to contest a general election or a group of byelections from two constituencies. The section 70 holds that if a candidate wins from more than one seat in either house of the parliament or state legislature, he/she can hold only to one seat and will have to vacant the other.
Ashwini Yadav has challenged the provision of Representation of People Act as unconstitutional. Advocate Ashwini Upadhyaya in his plea sought SC’s direction to not allow a candidate from contesting from two Lok Sabha seats on the provision of wastage of public money in getting an election conducted once again for the constituency that is left vacant by the winning candidate.
The petitioner stated his petition by saying that One Person One Vote and One candidate and One Constituency is the dictum of democracy in our country.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi is contesting from two seats, Amethi and Wayanad in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
Previously, there have been candidates who have contested on two Lok Sabha seats.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi contested two seats- Vadodara, his home turf in Gujarat and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 Lok Sabha Elections.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee contested from Vidisha and Lucknow in 1991. In the same year, LK Advani contested from New Delhi and Gandhinagar.
Sonia Gandhi contested from Bellary and Amethi in 1999. Mulayam Singh Yadav contested from Azamgarh and Mainpuri.
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