Nearly a fortnight after Vidisha went to polls, the Congress sacked its Madhya Pradesh unit general secretary Rajkumar Patel, whose nomination was rejected on technical grounds.

Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj got a virtual walkover when Patel’s candidature was rejected after he failed to submit in time the ‘A’ form in original. The document is required to prove that a candidate is the party’s official nominee.

According to party sources, Patel had been given a proper set of documents nearly a week in advance to file his nomination papers. He still went to submit his form an hour before the deadline on the last day of filing nominations.

The returning officer refused to accept the form because the original document was missing. The party rushed a fresh set of documents from Bhopal but it reached late.

A general secretary for more than 14 years, Patel had a hard time explaining the lapse, more so because he had contested several elections, including one against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

The party sent two observers to inquire into the lapse and they were not convinced by Patel’s arguments. Finally, after waiting for both the phases of voting in Madhya Pradesh to get over, the party cracked the whip.

“I will continue to serve the party in the capacity of an ordinary worker,” said the former education minister, who is close to AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh. He refuted the allegation that he had struck a deal with his rivals. “I am still shocked by the rejection and will soon challenge it in the court of law,” he said.