Nainital, Aug 14 (PTI) The Uttarakhand Congress on Thursday approached the high court to intervene in the matter after it accused the BJP of kidnapping five of its zilla panchayat members to prevent them from casting their votes in the ongoing panchayat elections in Nainital district.
Hearing the PIL in this regard, the high court listed the matter for the next hearing on Monday.
Before listing the matter for Monday, the bench of Chief Justice Guhanathan Narendar and Alok Mahara had given the district authorities time till 4.30 pm to produce the allegedly kidnapped panchayat members who were supposed to vote in the elections for district presidents and block pramukhs.
However, when they failed to do so, Nainital District Magistrate Vandana Singh, who appeared before the court through video conferencing, told the court she would request the State Election Commission to conduct a repoll for the posts in the district on Monday.
The division bench noted that four of the five missing members can be seen clearly in the videos being circulated on social media. It can be seen that they are being dragged away forcefully from near the polling booth, it said.
The kin of some of the missing zilla panchayat members also approached the high court to produce documents in support of their claim that they had been kidnapped. They also submitted a list of 10 accused who had allegedly kidnapped the members.
SSP Nainital Prahlad Singh Meena also appeared before the court. He was directed to take strict action against the uniformed officer seen in the video, and the police officer who lapsed in filing the complaint of the family members of the missing persons.
Before the matter reached the court, a scuffle broke out between the BJP workers and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the state Assembly, Yashpal Arya, former MLA Sanjeev Arya and Haldwani MLA Sumit Hridayesh.
Congress alleged that this attack was carried out by people in civil dress, while the police remained a mute spectator. The entire incident was broadcast live on Arya’s Facebook page.
Congress candidate Pushpa Negi claimed her husband was also attacked in the clash, and the clothes of many Congress members were torn.
However, Uttarakhand BJP president Mahendra Bhatt, in Dehradun, accused the Congress of disrupting polling, which was being conducted peacefully in Nainital.
“Elections that were being conducted peacefully in Nainital were disrupted by Congress goons. I strongly condemn the incident. I wonder what the leader of the opposition and the local MLA were doing there,” he said.
On a video in which Congress leaders were shown displaying the certificates of 15 of its zilla panchayat members, he asked how they had these certificates in their possession when they were supposed to be with the zilla panchayat members. PTI COR ALM AMJ AMJ
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