Discrepancy in Nandigram BJP candidate Hashirani Rath’s poll affidavit: Age 60, Class X in 1965

The Congress moved the Calcutta high court on September 23 over apparent discrepancies in the candidature of BJP’s Nandigram candidate for the upcoming bypolls, Hasirani Rath. In her election affidavit, Rath mentioned her age as ’60+’, but she also claimed she passed her Class X board examination in 1965.

Hasirani is the mother of the slain aide of Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari, Chandranath Rath.

According to the petition submitted by the Congress on September 23, if Rath’s age as stated on the front page of her affidavit is factually correct, she would have been born in 1965-66. Yet, on Page 10 in the same affidavit, Rath states that she passed the Secondary/Madhyamik examination in 1965 — meaning she would have completed Class X in the year she was born, or even before her birth. Alt News has accessed the petition.

According to Rath’s affidavit, she passed Class X from ‘Chowkhali Ganga Pada Milan Kanya Vidyapith’ (HS) in 1965.

It is also worth noting that the school is actually named Chowkhali Ganga Padma Milan Kanya Vidyapith and has been incorrectly mentioned in the affidavit as ‘Ganga Pada’.

Speaking to Alt News, West Bengal Pradesh Congress spokesperson Ajitesh Pandey said, “It is the duty of the returning officer to scrutinise the documents of the candidates. And there was a glaring error on the face of it. But they just let it go. When it came to our knowledge, we raised a complaint, and we approached the court, requesting the court to order the returning officer to call a verification and enquiry in respect of her educational qualification and her degrees, especially her Class X pass certificate.”

“In the case of Minakshi Natarajan, there was a similar error, which led to the cancellation of her candidature. But the objection was raised during the scrutiny. In the case of Nandigram, we did not object during the scrutiny because, of course, we were not given Hasirani Rath’s nomination papers, which were later uploaded on the ECI website. We will challenge her candidature through an election petition if she succeeds in retaining her nomination. But for now, our prayer before the court is that there should be an enquiry into her educational background,” said Pandey.

The petition filed by Congress states that The BJP candidate “is asking the electorate, the Returning Officer and this Hon’ble Court to believe that she appeared for and cleared a Class X board examination either before she was born, or… while she was an infant of about one year of age. No explanation consistent with ordinary human biology, or with the ordinary age at which children in West Bengal sit for the Class X examination (ordinarily 15-16 years), can reconcile the two declarations.”

Pandey, along with Congress leader and senior advocate Riju Ghoshal, represented the party in the high court. The petition was mentioned before a single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao.

The court allowed the petition to be filed, and it is likely to be heard on Thursday.