Panaji, May 9 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Goa on Thursday filed a complaint before Election Commission against Congress candidate for Panaji by-election Atanasio Monserrate alleging that he had failed to publish in newspapers list of criminal cases filed against him.
In the complaint, BJP Goa unit President Vinay Tendulkar said, “The Supreme Court judgment in writ petition 536 of 2011 makes it mandatory that the candidate having criminal background and the political party who has set up such a candidate must inform the general public three times on different dates in the period between the last day of withdrawal of nominations and the last day of campaigning about the same through print media as well as electronic media..”
“Therefore, it is our strong contention that Atanasio Monserrtae and the Congress have clearly violated the aforesaid mandatory provision laid down by the ECI and have also attracted a serious case of contempt of Supreme Court,” he said.
Mr Tendulkar claimed that by not complying with the Supreme Court directions, Mr Monserrate had also attracted contempt of court.
Besides Mr Monserrate, Valmiki Naik of Aam Adami Party (AAP), Sidharth Kuncaliencar of BJP and Subhash Velingkar of Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM) are also in the fray. The by-elections are scheduled to be held on May 19.
