Actor and former Rajya Sabha MP Raj Babbar was on Thursday sentenced to two years’ imprisonment by an MP/MLA court in Lucknow for assaulting poll officers during the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, reported the Hindustan Times.

The Congress leader, who was present in court when the verdict was pronounced, was also fined Rs 6,500.

However, additional chief judicial magistrate Ambrish Kumar granted Babbar interim bail in the case. The former MP can challenge the verdict in a sessions court within 30 days.

The court had reserved its order in the case on June 24.

The case is based on a first information report lodged by polling officer Srikrishna Singh Rana on May 2, 1996, against Babbar, a man named Arvind Yadav and other unidentified persons. Yadav had died during the trial.

Rana had alleged that Babbar and his supporters had entered a polling station in Lucknow, levelled false allegations of rigging and assaulted the staff members, reported The Times of India.

The former MP was contesting the Lucknow Lok Sabha seat on a Samajwadi party ticket against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who won by a huge margin.