Baba Gorakhnath has signed the relevant paperwork to take back his election petition from the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.
This clears the deck for the announcement of the poll date for Milkipur assembly constituency of Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh. While the byelection date was announced for nine constituencies in the state, Milkipur was not on the list as Gorakhnath had filed a petition against Awadhesh Prasad, the winner of the 2022 elections. The petition had been filed for using an invalid notary to submit the election affidavit.
Awadhesh Prasad is now the MP from Faizabad, having recently won the seat in the general elections. He fought on a Samajwadi Party ticket. Gorakhnath had won the Milkipur seat as a BJP candidate in 2017.
Gorakhnath said, “It was my understanding that the matter would have been nullified since Prasad is no longer the MLA. However, as advised by my lawyer, I have signed the papers to take back my petition”.
This clears the deck for the bypoll in Milkipur.
The said petition was filed on April 22, 2022. The last hearing in the case took place on August 3, 2023. According to court documents reviewed by The Week, the plaintiff, that is Gorakhnath, had to file an application before the court within two weeks’ time, after which the respondent was to file an objection to the response.