Bhopal: In a major setback to the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, the Election Commission (EC) on Saturday disqualified senior Madhya Pradesh minister Narottam Mishra for three years for filing wrong accounts of election expenditure.
Former Datia MLA Rajendra Bharti had in 2009 complained to the EC against Mishra, accusing him of getting paid news published in his favour during the assembly polls campaign in 2008.
Mishra, who holds the portfolios of Water Resources, Parliamentary Affairs and Public Relations, claimed that he would challenge the verdict in the High Court. “The EC hasn’t said that I got paid news published nor has any media house accepted it took money for publishing news,” he said.
He also added that the matter pertains to 2008 and that he had successfully sought re-election afterwards.
Reacting to the Congress’ demand of his resignation, Mishra said that if their demands were acted upon regularly, a by-election would be required daily in MP.
Meanwhile, Rajendra Bharti told reporters that he had accused Mishra of getting 42 paid news items published and proved his charges during the hearing at the EC. “It was wrong on two accounts — first he got paid news published and secondly, no details of these expenses were given in prescribed format to the EC,” Bharti said.
The Congress party has sought Mishra’s resignation in the wake of the EC verdict and urged CM CM Chouhan to sack Mishra if he failed to put in his papers.
MP Congress president Arun Yadav tweeted, “EC has disqualified Narottam Mishra for three years from contesting election so he should resign immediately.”
Chouhan told reporters he was yet to see the EC order, but added that he would discuss the matter with Mishra.
“For the time being, the party is completely behind Narottam Mishra,” Chauhan said.
Mishra, a senior minister and the spokesperson of MP government was elected to the state assembly for the first time in 1990 and was handed the Award of Excellent MLA in his second term as legislator in 1998. He was inducted into the Chouhan cabinet in 2003.
Mishra had earlier moved HC in 2016 questioning EC’s competence in the matter but the court had thrown the ball back to the EC’s court asking it to continue its hearing.
If Mishra fails to get the verdict stayed by the HC or the Supreme Court, he would have to sit out the 2018 assembly elections.
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