Kejriwal blames Modi for rejection of ex-BSF jawan's nomination

New Delhi, May 1: AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi got former BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav's nomination "cancelled" as he was "afraid" to contest against him from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.

Yadav's nomination as the Samajwadi Party candidate from the seat was rejected Wednesday over "discrepancies" in the two sets of nomination papers submitted by him. Notices in this regard were sent to him on Tuesday.

"There will be fewer occasions in history when the jawans of a country are compelled to challenge their PM, but this is the first time in history that a PM has been so afraid of a jawan that instead of competing with him, he got his nomination cancelled on technical grounds.

"Modi ji, you are very weak and the country's jawan won," Kejriwal tweeted.

Yadav was dismissed from the Border Security Force (BSF) after he triggered a controversy by uploading a video in which he alleged that poor quality food was being served to jawans. In the first set of papers on April 24, he had mentioned that he was dismissed from the Border Security Force.

On April 29 he submitted a second set of papers - this time as the Samajwadi Party nominee for the Lok Sabha seat - but did not give out this information. He was also required to submit a no-objection certificate from the BSF, giving reasons for his dismissal.

Modi is seeking reelection from Varanasi. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Modi, who contested from two seats --Varanasi in UP and Vadodra in Gujarat-- had defeated Kejriwal from here. Congress' Ajay Rai finished third.

PTI