A petition has been submitted to the Election Commission pleading the cancellation of Rahul Gandhi’s nomination from Amethi until the matter of his alleged British citizenship has been resolved by the competent authority, that is, the central government, specifically, the Home Ministry.
The application, filed by Rajneesh Kumar Singh says that matter of Rahul Gandhi’s British citizenship is pending before the central government since the year 2015 and that the applicant, Rajneesh Kumar Singh had written to the Election Commission on 15th April 2019 requesting the cancellation of Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi nomination on the same grounds and that the applicant had also filed a writ petition before the High Court bench of Lucknow.
The High Court, says the petition, had directed Rajneesh to file an application on the same before the central government, that is the competent authority and the Court had directed the government to act expeditiously in the matter.
The petition goes on to say that the matter of Indian citizenship of Rahul Gandhi and his membership of Parliament has been challenged before the High Court on the ground that Rahul Gandhi has acquired British Nationality as such, he has lost his Indian citizenship under provision of Article 9 of the Constitution of India, read with Citizenship Act 1955. It also says that owing to this, Rahul Gandhi has also lost the right to contest the Parliamentary elections under the provision of Article 84 clause 2 sub-clause 9(k).
The petition then says that till the matter of citizenship and eligibility to contest parliamentary elections is subjudiced before the central government, the nomination of Rahul Gandhi as a candidate from Amethi should be cancelled in the interest of justice.
Rahul Gandhi British Nationality has been a contentious issue since 2015 after MP Subramanian Swamy raised the issue. He presented documents where Rahul Gandhi had listed himself as a British citizen in some documents pertaining to his company Backops.
The central government had issued a notice and given Rahul Gandhi a fortnight to respond to the representation made by Subramanian Swamy recently.
Congress had released an explanation that was tweeted by loyalist media person Pallavi Ghosh. The party had released an old British document that listed Rahul Gandhi as an Indian citizen to counter the British nationality allegation. However, the explanation released by Congress had raised more questions than answered as OpIndia had discovered.
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a plea to direct the Election Commission of India (ECI) to debar Congress president Rahul Gandhi from contesting the Lok Sabha polls and “becoming a Member of Parliament” after he had “voluntarily acquired British nationality.” The plea was filed by Delhi residents Jai Bhagwan Goyal and Chander Prakash Tyagi.
