Ex-BSF jawan who exposed poor food given to troops, to fight election against PM Modi in Varanasi

Varanasi, April 30, 2019:

In an interesting twist ahead of the elections in Varanasi, the Samajwadi Party has fielded Tej Bahadur Yadav, a former BSF jawan who had been dismissed from service in 2017. He had earlier filed his nomination papers as an independent candidate.

Tej had earlier gone viral after a video had surfaced of him wearing military fatigues and criticizing the food that troops stationed at the border were being given by the ruling administration headed by PM Narendra Modi.

The jawan was dismissed from service by the Summary Security Force Court at Samba after he was found guilty of violating the SOP (standard operating procedure). The charges against him included carrying two mobile phones while on active duty and posting his photographs in uniform on social media.

Earlier in March, Tej Bahadur had first expressed his interest to take on Prime Minister Modi from the Varanasi Constituency and said that he wants to battle "corruption".

Meanwhile, Delhi CM and AAP Chief Arvind Kejriwal took to Twitter to laud Yadav for his move.

Varanasi will head to the polls during the seventh and last day of polling on 19 May.