Allahabad: The Allahabad High Court on Friday granted "a last opportunity of eight weeks and no more time" to a Congress MLA for filing of rebuttal to objections raised by counsel appearing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose election from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat has been challenged by the legislator.
Justice V K Shukla, who was hearing the election petition of MLA Ajair Rai, posted the matter for hearing on July 10, 2015 while expressing dissatisfaction over the fact that "election petitioners are not at all responding" to objections raised by the respondents while seeking adjournment on the ground that "necessary rebuttal has not been filed".
Rai, who represents Pindra assembly segment of Uttar Pradesh, had contested from Varanasi as the Congress nominee.
He has alleged that Modi had not filled complete and accurate details in his affidavit.
Rai, who had finished a distant third and forfeited his deposit in the contest in which Modi defeated his nearest rival Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party by 3.71 lakh votes, has also alleged that during Modi' campaign, his supporters violated the model code of conduct on numerous occasions and that the expenditure incurred ran into crores of rupees, far in excess of the permissible limit of Rs 70 lakh.
Rai had begun his political career as a BJP MLA from Kolasla seat from where he got elected in three consecutive assembly elections ?- 1996, 2002 and 2007.
In 2009, while he was a sitting BJP MLA, he resigned from the party on being denied a Lok Sabha ticket from Varanasi and entered the fray as a Samajwadi Party nominee and finished third in what turned out to be a stiff contest between BJP heavyweight Murli Manohar Joshi who managed to beat Mukhtar Ansari of the then ruling BSP by a margin of under 20,000 votes.
Rai thereafter joined Congress and fought the 2012 assembly polls from the newly-created constituency of Pindra, since Kolasla had ceased to exist after the 2009 delimitation.
