Patna: A controversy has cropped up regarding one of the candidates from Bihar who is contesting the Central Council of Indian Medicine elections.

On Thursday, the president of the Bihar chapter of Ayush Medical Association, Madhurendu Pandey and the president of Akhil Bharatiya Ayurveda Mahasammelan Dhananjay Sharma, shot off a joint letter to the health department according to which a former president of the State Council of Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine, who was contesting the elections, had financial irregularities charges against him.

"The charges are serious against former president of State Council of Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine Arvind Kumar Sinha. He had charges of financial irregularities against him when he was holding the post of the president of the State Council of Ayurvedic and Unani Medicine. In an order issued in 2010 the Patna High Court had asked Sinha to return the money (around Rs 13 lakh), which had been siphoned off. He is not a genuine candidate for the election," said Pandey.

The Telegraph couldn't contact Arvind Kumar Sinha.

The CCIM runs under the Union ministry of Ayush and is the regulatory body of Ayush institutions across the country. CCIM runs on the lines of Medical Council of India (MCI). While the MCI regulates the MBBS education, the CCIM regulates the Ayush medical institutions. It is conducting elections for the four representatives from Bihar, the results of which are supposed to be out by December 8.

Earlier, the state chapter of the Ayush Medical Association had claimed that many bogus voters from Bihar were going to cast their votes in the CCIM elections (as they claimed that names of many dead people figured in the voters' list and the norm of casting votes through postal ballot could give a chance to bogus voters to cast their votes in the name of the dead).