Ajay Maken seeks rejection of AAP’s Rajya Sabha candidate

New Delhi: Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken on Saturday filed an objection to nomination of AAP’s Rajya Sabha candidate N.D. Gupta for allegedly holding an office of profit.

In his objection filed with the retuning officer, Mr Maken claimed that Mr Gupta “is currently holding the office of a trustee of the National Pension System Trust. He was appointed on March 30”.

Mr Gupta, along with two other Rajya Sabha candidates of the Aam Aadmi Party, Sanjay Singh and Sushil Gupta, had filed nomination papers on January 4. The scrutiny of the nominations is on Saturday. “N.D. Gupta’s nomination is liable to be rejected under Section 36 of Representation of Peoples Act, 1951 read with Article 102 of the Constitution,” Mr Maken claimed.

Mr Maken pointed out that Mr Gupta is currently holding the office of a trustee of the National Pension System Trust (NPS Trust) and also the chairman of the Audit Committee to the board of NPS Trust.

According to Mr Maken, as per the latest information available on the official website of the NPS, Mr Gupta was appointed as a trustee of the Rs 1,74,500 crore NPS Trust on March 30, 2015, by the BJP government at the Centre and continues to be a trustee till date.

Meanwhile, the AAP said that Mr Maken was trying to gain “cheap publicity” through “frivolous” objections as the law does not forbid trustees from contesting.