NEW DELHI, January 29: Jagdish Tytler's nomination papers as a covering candidate was rejected today by Deputy Commissioner (North) Jitendra Narain.His attempts to contact Congress president Sitaram Kesri and Sonia Gandhi last night, and put up his case ended in failure as both were campaigning in Haryana.
This morning, when Tytler was conferring with his followers, he is believed to have received a call from AICC vice-president Jitendra Prasada who asked him not to precipitate matters. This has put an end to all the speculation surrounding the former Union surface transport minister's return to the Lok Sabha from the Sadar seat. "The nomination papers of a covering candidate are annulled when the papers of the main candidate proposed by a national party are accepted. The papers of Aggarwal were found in order. And because of this, the nomination papers of Jagdish Tytler as the covering candidate have been rejected," Jitendra Narain said.
There was an option for Tytler to have contested the electionsfrom Sadar Lok Sabha constituency as an independent candidate. "I am not such a cheap person," Tytler said when asked why he did not exercise this option. "I will contest elections only as the candidate for the Congress."
The Congress candidate for Sadar is MM Aggarwal for whom Tytler put in his papers as the covering candidate. The covering candidate gets the nomination in case the main candidate's nomination is rejected. And usually, a covering candidate is a senior party functionary whose main purpose is to make sure that a given national party has a candidate in the fray for any eventuality.
Tytler backed out from filing a separate set of papers as an independent candidate, realising that it could have led to his expulsion from the party. In fact, he had assumed that Aggarwal would have withdrawn at the last moment.
However, in this case what has surprised observers was that a leader of Tytler's stature had filed his nomination as a covering candidate, raising doubts that Aggarwal's papers would berejected.
Others were speculating that as Tytler was playing his last cards to force himself into the election fray, there was a possibility that Aggarwal's papers were deliberately filled the wrong way. If this had happened, Tytler would have been automatically declared as the official candidate.
Tytler was also told that the final list for Delhi was prepared with blessings from 10, Janpath. On the other hand, Tytler's colleagues -- HKL Bhagat and Sajjan Kumar -- preferred to keep mum today. They are reported to have convinced themselves that no party would bag a majority this time too. And therefore, it would not be long before the fresh round of elections are announced.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
