MP HC voids Cong MLA’s bypoll win, declares BJP’s Rawat elected

Bhopal: The Gwalior Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday set aside the 2024 by-election victory of Congress legislator Mukesh Malhotra from Vijaypur Assembly constituency in Sheopur district, holding that he had concealed information about pending criminal cases in his election affidavit.

Allowing a petition filed by the losing candidate, the single bench of Justice G S Ahluwalia declared Malhotra’s election “null and void” and pronounced BJP leader Ramniwas Rawat as the duly elected MLA from the constituency.

The bypoll, held in November 2024, had witnessed a political contest between two turncoats. Malhotra, a former BJP leader who had joined the Congress, contested on the Congress ticket, while Rawat, a five-time Congress MLA who switched to the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, fought the election as the BJP candidate.

In the by-election, Malhotra secured around 1,00,469 votes and defeated Rawat by a margin of about 7,364 votes. Rawat, who polled nearly 93,105 votes, finished in second place. After joining the BJP, Rawat had also been inducted as a minister in the Mohan Yadav-led Madhya Pradesh government and was given charge of the Forest portfolio. However, he later resigned from the ministerial post due to losing the by-election.

Challenging the victory of Malhotra, Rawat approached the High Court alleging that Malhotra had failed to fully disclose details of criminal cases pending against him in his election affidavit.

Counsel for the petitioner, MPS Raghuvanshi, said that the Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasised that candidates contesting elections must file affidavits along with their nomination papers disclosing complete details of criminal antecedents. According to him, the information furnished by Malhotra regarding four criminal cases was incomplete, and details of some other cases were allegedly not disclosed at all.

Accepting the contention, the High Court held that the suppression of material information relating to criminal cases amounted to a corrupt practice and warranted setting aside the election result. The court consequently cancelled Malhotra’s victory and declared Rawat, who had secured the second-highest number of votes in the by-election, as the elected representative from Vijaypur.

The court has given Malhotra one week to challenge the order before a higher court.

The Vijaypur bypoll had been necessitated after Rawat resigned as the five-time sitting Congress MLA from the seat in July 2024 before joining the BJP.