Mom & daughter fought polls, challenged results

AHMEDABAD: Theirs is a ‘dynasty’ of an independent kind. First, the mother fought and lost the assembly election from the Vav constituency in 2017. Her daughter followed suit in the Jasdan byelection in December 2018.

Lost elections and deposits were common in both cases. The similarities do not end here. Both of them have challenged the results of the elections concerned in the Gujarat high court.
The mother, Bhagvati Brahmkshtriya (66), moved the Gujarat high court and challenged the victory of Congress candidate Geniben Thakor.Her plea has been awaiting adjudication for nearly a year.
Like her mother, after losing the election in Jasdan, Nirupa Madhu moved the high court challenging the victory of BJP minister Kunvarji Bavaliya, who had quit the Congress to join the ruling party and was re-elected from the same seat last year.
Madhu has been contesting elections for some time now. She contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Banaskantha, only to lose her deposit. She secured just 2,064 votes, or 0.23% of the valid votes polled in the constituency.
During the December 2017 assembly elections, the mother went to her native place and filed her nominations from Vav. She managed to secure 2,643 votes, was less than 1/6 of the valid votes polled, 2,05,059, and she thus forfeited her deposit. After the election results were out, Brahmkshatriya moved the HC and questioned the outcome in the Vav constituency. Her advocate, Girish Das, claimed that she had alleged that the two affidavits filed by the Congress candidate were technically incorrect as they were in the wrong format. Instead of swearing their declaration on a stamp paper, Thakor allegedly attached a paper that was e-stamped at a bank and did not even bear her signature.
Brahmkshatriya, said, “I raised an objection before the election officer, but he did not act. I have filed a petition. I will see that the officer goes to jail. The election will be declared void.” In her mother’s footstep, Madhu last week filed an election petition in the high court demanding that Bavaliya’s election victory be declared annulled. She, however, did not divulge her contention and preferred to wait for the court to give her a preliminary hearing first.Interestingly, Madhu, a practising advocate in a Gandhinagar court, is contesting these Lok Sabha elections from the Gandhinagar constituency. On why they contest the elections, she said, “We fight elections with the aim of getting the law implemented in a proper manner.” During the 2017 assembly elections, candidates from as many as 21 constituencies challenged election results in the high court. The victories of 17 BJP MLAs and 4 Congress MLAs, or 10% of the 182 seats have been challenged. The HC quashed the result of the Dwarka constituency and annulled BJP candidate Pabubha Manek’s victory earlier this month. Two other such petitions have been disposed.