Indore (Madhya Pradesh): On April 29, hours after Akshay Kanti Bam, the Congress’s candidate for Madhya Pradesh’s Indore Lok Sabha constituency, withdrew his nomination and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Dharmendra Singh Jhala, a former air force officer, made his way to the collector’s office to collect his election symbol as an independent candidate – only to find that his name had been added to the list of withdrawn candidates, using a fake signature.
“On that day I only knew that the Congress candidate Akshay Bam had withdrawn his nomination and I knew that there could be a possibility of pressure on me, so I thought I’ll go after 3 pm (the deadline to withdraw nominations) to the collector’s office and take my election symbol,” he said to The Wire.
He continued: “At around 3:30 pm, I called the office and said I was coming to take my symbol. They said yes and asked me if I had withdrawn. I said no and they [asked me to come].
“At around 4:30 pm, we reached and we saw that the gates were shut. I said I had come to take my symbol and they asked me to sit outside. At around 5:30 pm, the document that named those candidates who had withdrawn was shown, which included my name as well. But I had not withdrawn my name.
“I told everyone that I had not signed or withdrawn. I asked to … meet the collector. I found that my fake signature was on the form and one of my ten proposers had signed on that document.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
