Former BJP MLA moves HC to withdraw election petition on Milkipur assembly constituency

LUCKNOW Former BJP MLA Baba Gorakhnath on Wednesday moved the Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court to withdraw his petition challenging the election of Samajwadi Party leader Awadhesh Prasad from the Milkipur assembly constituency in the 2022 election.

The Milkipur seat had fallen vacant following Prasad’s election to the Lok Sabha. The Election Commission on Tuesday announced bypolls to nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, but left out Milkipur due to proceedings in the matter before the court.

The petition will come up for hearing in the court of Justice Pankaj Bhatia on Thursday.

“I have moved the request for the withdrawal of litigation. The court will hear my plea on Thursday,” said Gorakhnath. He said he was withdrawing the plea “to pave way for the bypoll in the Milkipur assembly constituency, which had been impeded by the ongoing litigation.”

Gorakhnath was elected BJP MLA from reserved Milkipur assembly seat of Ayodhya in 2017 UP assembly polls. However, in 2022 polls, SP’s Awadhesh Prasad defeated Gorakhnath.

The former BJP MLA had filed a petition alleging that Prasad had taken an erroneous oath during the submission of his nomination papers. The writ alleged that the notary who authenticated Prasad’s documents did not possess a valid licence on the date of attestation.

Gorakhnath got the information about expiry of the licence through an RTI.

Samajwadi Party MP Awadhesh Prasad, said: “After winning the Lok Sabha election, I vacated the Milkipur seat by resigning and my resignation was accepted by the speaker. Thereafter, the election petition got ineffective on the date of my resignation. So, it was Gorakhnath’s moral duty to withdraw the litigation. He should have withdrawn his litigation soon after my resignation.”

Advocate Sandeep Yadav, who is representing Gorakhnath in court, said: “Baba Gorakhnath has filed an application to withdraw the election petition. It will come up for hearing on Thursday in the court of Justice Pankaj Bhatia.”

For the BJP, the importance of Milkipur bypoll could be gauged by the fact that chief minister Yogi Adityanath was in-charge of this assembly segment. Four other ministers of the state government were also appointed to look after election preparations in Milkipur.

On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party was also leaving nothing to chance to retain the seat. It reposed faith in Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad by giving ticket to his son Ajit Prasad from Milkipur. Ram Gopal Kori was the BSP candidate on this reserved assembly seat. However, the ruling BJP was yet to announce its candidate.