Rohtak police have registered a case against Haryana’s Minister of State for Cooperation, Manish Grover, over alleged criminal intimidation and undue influence during the recent Lok Sabha election, officials said. The FIR was filed on Tuesday at the Shivaji Nagar police station against Grover and Ramesh Lohar, who has a police history sheet.

The charges

According to officials, the two have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections dealing with criminal conspiracy, undue influence at elections, a public servant disobeying the law, criminal intimidation and disobedience of an order issued by a public servant, as well as under the Arms Act.

The complainant is Lokender Singh Phogat, who heads the District Bar Association. He alleged that on polling day, May 12, Grover and Lohar entered a polling booth in Rohtak with a group of 50-60 musclemen, created a disturbance and intimidated voters in an attempt to capture the booth. Phogat also said the two had threatened him for alerting the police. Grover, who represents Rohtak in the assembly for the BJP, had earlier denied the charges.

A long legal route

• May 18: Phogat asked a local court to order a case to be registered.
• June 3: the court directed that an FIR be registered against the two accused.
• The police then filed a revision petition before an additional district and sessions judge; it was rejected last week.
• The FIR followed a court notice to Dilbag Singh, the station house officer at Shivaji Nagar, in contempt proceedings in the matter.

Background

In Rohtak, the Congress candidate, three-time MP Deepender Singh Hooda, lost to the BJP’s Arvind Sharma by a narrow margin of a little over 7,000 votes.

A day after polling, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, the party’s general secretary in charge of Haryana, wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner on May 13 seeking action against Grover. Azad accused the minister of “illegally sabotaging” the voting in Rohtak.

See also: Bharatiya Janata Party and constituencies.

Originally published on 31 July 2019. Rewritten on 9 October 2026.

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