Disqualification of PDP Gelephu candidate
The Party was very surprised with the decision to disqualify our Gelephu constituency candidate Garab Dorji. In over five months as a candidate, Garab gave copies of the document in question to just two persons in a constituency with over ten thousand voters. That, in our view, hardly qualifies as “distribution” or a concerted strategy on his part to use the document for political gain. Moreover, the document is not a secret document and is readily available in the public domain including the internet.
We would also like to stress that what happened in Gelephu was a totally isolated incident. Besides the fact that it was only given to two persons in Gelephu, the document has not appeared in any other constituency.
In the five months as our candidate, Garab worked well and very hard. He covered his entire constituency spending days on the road, and walking to all the remote parts of his constituency. Apart from the vast amount of time and effort Garab and his well-wishers put into in his campaign, as a candidate with no other source of income, he has spent all of his meager life savings to cover his family’s living expenses for the last five months.
The Party is therefore saddened with the severity of punishment meted out to Garab Dorji. It is currently in the process of considering the options available to us, including the nomination of a new candidate to take his place.
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