Beleaguered Samajwadi Party's efforts to get Priyanka Gandhi, the election agent of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, out of Rae Bareli failed on Sunday when the Returning Officer rejected its demand.
Raising strong objection to Priyanka's stay in Rae Bareli, Samajwadi Party MP Bhagwati Singh demanded that she be asked to leave the constituency 'as EC guidelines clearly state outsiders with security personnel cannot be present after the end of campaign'.
However, the EC, while ordering that VIPs getting security from the state government leave the constituency after the campaign, said the order did not apply to candidates and their agents.
Singh, who is leading a pack of over a dozen SP members still camping in the constituency, despite EC direction, said, "If the Samajwadi Party polling agent in Farrukhabad constituency Sheopal Singh Yadav could be removed on similar grounds, then why not Priyanka.
"We will remain in the constituency as long as Priyanka, who also enjoys heavy security, remains here," he said.
Singh regretted that the Returning Officer has rejected his demand.
UPCC chief spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh asserted that Priyanka has been authorised by the EC to stay in the constituency as Sonia Gandhi's polling agent and criticised the 'fuss' created by SP over her stay in the constituency.