Lucknow, June 23: The Uttar Pradesh Congress has kept up the pressure on returning officer R.P. Pandey, calling him “politically biased and prejudiced”, ahead of tomorrow’s review of nomination papers of two party candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections.

Pandey is scheduled to take up the review tomorrow in accordance with the Election Commission’s directive.

The returning officer had rejected the papers of Harendra Agarwal and Madan Mohan Shukla, saying they were not backed by adequate information, were incorrectly formatted and had been filed after the deadline was over.

The state Congress today sent to the poll panel a bunch of fresh documents relating to nominations of all 11 candidates in the fray from the state. The party alleged that while lapses in nomination papers of other candidates were ignored, nominations of the Congress candidates were rejected on the same grounds. Party leaders are expected to point out these lapses during tomorrow’s scrutiny.

“The returning officer is betraying his bias in dealing with our cases at every step. We cannot expect justice from him. We demand his removal immediately. Only an impartial RO would do justice to us,” state Congress chief Jagdambika Pal said.

Although the party does not have enough numbers in the Assembly to ensure victory of any of the two candidates, the 11 nominees would have been elected unopposed had the Congress complaint against Pandey been rejected.

It is learnt that after yesterday’s order of the Election Commission directing the state returning officer to reconsider the nominations of the two Congress candidates, party leaders returned to Lucknow in a triumphant mood.

They approached the returning officer this morning and asked for the copies of the nomination papers of all 11 candidates so that the party could compare where their own candidates had erred in filling the form. However, the office of the returning officer did not oblige, prompting the Congress leaders to cry foul.

What further intensified the bitterness between Pandey and the Congress is the officer’s statement yesterday that no new additions would be allowed as far as the papers were concerned. “All I have to do is to take a relook at the existing records,” he said. The statement has been construed as an example of the returning officer’s intransigent stand vis-à-vis Congress candidates.

The Congress then used its influence to get the copies of nominations filed by the other candidates and sent them to the Election Commission office. Releasing some of these copies to the media, the party leaders alleged that nomination papers of some Samajwadi Party and BJP candidates, who filled up the form keeping some columns vacant, were accepted.

Citing the form filled by Lalit Suri, a copy of which was distributed to the media, legislative party leader Pramod Tiwari alleged that the space for criminal records, if any, was left vacant.