The caste certificate of seer-turned-politician and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Solapur Jaisiddeshwar Shivacharya Mahaswamiji was on Monday declared invalid by a district caste validity committee which directed that a case be filed against the parliamentarian. A copy of the order is with PTI .
The Solapur seat is reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) category. The BJP leader had defeated senior Congressman and former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde in the 2019 polls by over 1.5 lakh votes.
One Pramod Gaikwad had complained to the validity committee that the MP, in his election affidavit, had mentioned that he belonged to the ‘Beda Jangam’ community, which is an SC. However, he alleged that the seer was in fact a Hindu Lingayat and sought a detailed probe into his caste certificate.
The three-member caste validity committee, led by Dnyaneshwar Sul, on Monday said the BJP leader did not belong to the Beda Jangam community and declared his certificate invalid and forged. The committee also asked the Akkalkot tehsildar to file a case against him in a magistrate court under provisions of the Caste Certificate Act, 2000.
Meanwhile, the parliamentarian’s lawyer Santosh Navkar alleged the committee was working under “pressure” from the complainant. “There is proof that wherever the vigilance squad went to verify documents, people from the complainant’s side were with them. We had objected to the reports filed by the vigilance squad and had made applications to replace the squad but the committee did not take any cognisance,” Mr. Navkar said.
He said the entire proceeding was carried out in a “hasty” manner and said they would approach the Bombay High Court against the invalidation order.
Lawyer Sanjay Chavan, representing the complainant, said the leader could now be disqualified as Lok Sabha MP. “We will approach the (Solapur) district collector and submit an application for further action,” he said.
