March 4: The People’s Democratic Party says it was very surprised with the decision to disqualify their Gelephu constituency candidate Garab Dorji.

In a release issued yesterday, the PDP says in over five months as a candidate, Garab Dorji gave copies of the document in question to just two persons in a constituency with over ten thousand voters.

According to the PDP, that hardly qualifies as distribution or as a concerted strategy on Garab Dorji’s part to use the document for political gain.

The PDP release says the document is not a secret document and is readily available in the public domain including the internet. The PDP says 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 other constituencies.

The PDP release says in the five months as the party’s candidate, Garab covered his entire constituency spending days on the road, and walking to all the remote parts of his constituency.

The PDP says it is saddened with the severity of the punishment meted out to Garab Dorji and is currently in the process of considering the options available to them, including the nomination of a new candidate to take his place.