A day after BJP fielded Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thukar from Bhopal for the Lok Sabha Elections 2019, a Malegaon blast victim¡¯s father and political activist moved Election Commission (EC) and NIA seeking barring of her candidature.
"Hemant Karkare falsely implicated me [in Malegaon blasts] and treated me very badly. I told him your entire dynasty will be erased. He died of his karma," Sadhvi Pragya said today.
The BJP said that it will contest the polls from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh against the alleged ¡°conspiracy¡± by the Congress to defame Hindu religion by linking it to terrorism.
The plea in the NIA court was filed by Nisar Sayeed, who lost his son in the blast in 2008.
Thakur is out on bail and will be asked to attend court proceedings in Mumbai. The plea is to bar her from contesting elections as trial is in progress. Thakur has spent nine years in jail and is out on bail since 2017 on health grounds.
If Thakur was "healthy enough to fight elections in the crippling summer heat", then she has misled the court, Sayeed alleged. The petition seeking cancellation of her bail is pending before the Supreme Court.
Six people were killed and more than 100 were injured in a bomb blast in Malegaon, a communally sensitive town in north of Maharashtra, in 2008.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested Thakur and others in the case, alleging they were part of a Hindu extremist group which carried out the blast. NIA later gave her a clean chit but the court did not discharge her.
"I would humbly request the Election Commission of India to take further necessary steps to uphold the Model Code of Conduct 2019 and take appropriate action against Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur and debar her from contesting elections," the letter said.