Kangana Ranaut, an MP from the Mandi constituency of Himachal might face a setback after one of the contestants from the seat has filed a petition. A petitioner from Kinnaur filed a petition pleading to set aside her win in the Lok Sabha elections citing the rejection of his nomination papers.

Petitioner Layak Ram Negi, a former employee of the forest department filed this petition alleging that his nomination from the Mandi constituency was wrongly rejected by the returning officer, the deputy commissioner of Mandi.

Negi said in his petition that he took premature retirement voluntarily and had produced a ‘no dues certificate’ from the department along with his nomination application. He was given a single day to produce no dues certificate from the electricity, water and telephone departments. However, when he made a prompt submission, the returning officer did not accept them and rejected his nomination.

In his petition, Negi has pleaded that the outcome of votes in the constituency could have been different had he been allowed to contest and therefore the winning of the current MP from the Mandi constituency should be set aside.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court has issued a notice to Ranaut in this case and directed her to file a reply by August 21.

With the Lok Sabha polls 2024, Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut entered into politics, contested from Mandi and won the seat defeating her rival candidate from Congress Vikramaditya Singh by a margin of 74,755 votes. She garnered 5,37,002 votes to defeat the prince, the son of late Virbhadra Singh and Pratibha Singh.