LUCKNOW: The nomination papers of the Samajwadi Party candidate for legislative council polls, Kirti Kol, were found to be invalid on Tuesday – in a development that will pave the way for election of both BJP nominees, Dharemndra Singh Sainthwar and Nirmala Paswan, unopposed. With this, the strength of the BJP in the state’s Upper House will rise to 75.
Kirti, a tribal from Mirzapur, mentioned herself to be 28 years old while the qualifying age for the council polls is 30. The nomination of Sainthwar and Paswan were found valid. All three candidates had filed the nomination papers on Monday, which happened to be the last day of doing so. While Sainthwar is the BJP’s Gorakhpur region president, Paswan is the vice-president of Kashi region.