Congress leader Hardik Patel moved the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat High Court order rejecting his plea to stay his conviction in the 2015 Vispur rioting case.
Patel had started preparations to contest from Jamnagar on a Congress ticket after joining the party on March 12th. The last date for filing of nominations is April 4. Polling for 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will be held on April 23.
A Sessions Court at Visnagar in Mehsana had sentenced Hardik Patel to two-year imprisonment on July 25, 2018 for rioting and arson in Visnagar town in 2015 during the Patidar agitation for reservation in education and jobs. The Gujarat High Court had in August last year suspended the sentence but not the conviction.
According to India’s election law, the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and Supreme Court ruling, a convict facing a jail term of two years or more cannot contest elections. But if the conviction is stayed or suspended, the ineligibility is removed.
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