Congress demands BJP MLA’s disqualification after High Court upholds his conviction

The Opposition Congress in Rajasthan on Saturday (May 3, 2025) demanded the disqualification of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kanwar Lal Meena following the Rajasthan High Court’s order upholding his conviction in a 20-year-old case. Mr. Meena, elected from Baran district’s Anta, was sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment in the matter.

The case pertained to an incident in February 2005, when Mr. Meena arrived with seven associates at the venue of a protest by villagers in Jhalawar district demanding a Deputy Sarpanch repoll, and threatened the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) with a revolver. He allegedly aimed the revolver at the SDM’s head and asked him to either announce a repoll within two minutes or get killed.

Mr. Meena, who was not elected to the Rajasthan Assembly at the time, already had 15 criminal cases against him. He damaged the recording equipment of government officials to remove traces of his action and left the scene. He was arrested three years after the incident and released on bail the same day.

Though Mr. Meena was initially acquitted by the trial court, a sessions court in Aklera later convicted him in December 2020 after finding him guilty of obstructing government work, intimidating government officials, and vandalising property. He was sentenced to imprisonment for three years and two years, respectively, on different charges, to be served concurrently.

A two-time MLA, Mr. Meena first won the election from Jhalawar’s Manohar Thana in 2013, and later from Anta in 2023. Dismissing his revision petition, which challenged the sessions court’s judgment, a Single Judge Bench of the High Court ruled on Friday that Mr. Meena’s conviction was in accordance with the facts and law, and based on strong evidence.

The High Court directed Mr. Meena to surrender immediately before the trial court, failing which the court would issue non-bailable warrants against him, and the MLA would undergo the sentence.

Pradesh Congress Committee president Govind Singh Dotasra and the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly Tika Ram Jully demanded that Mr. Meena be disqualified forthwith in accordance with the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. Section 8(3) of the Act provides for the disqualification of a lawmaker following conviction for an offence with a two-year sentence or more.

Mr. Jully said Assembly Speaker Vasudev Devnani should immediately pass an order cancelling Mr. Meena’s membership of the House in view of the High Court upholding his imprisonment sentence. A delegation of Congress leaders will shortly meet the Speaker and place the demand before him.

An alleged attack by a mob led by Mr. Meena, when he was an MLA, on activists taking part in a ‘Jawabdehi Yatra’ (march for accountability) in Jhalawar district’s Aklera region on January 16, 2016, had also made headlines. Videos had emerged showing Mr. Meena with a lathi charging towards the activists, and beating and chasing them away. The incident had attracted attention to the movement to highlight rampant corruption in public life and fixing accountability.