DURHAM, N.C. – An attorney representing one of two Duke University lacrosse players accused of rape demanded the district attorney’s removal from the case yesterday and accused him of using it to help his election prospects.

District Attorney Mike Nifong faces a primary election today that could decide whether he remains in office.

“They don’t want to go up against me,” Mr. Nifong said when asked outside court yesterday about the defense request for his removal. He has denied any political motivation behind his aggressive investigation.

In one of several motions filed yesterday, however, defense attorney Kirk Osborn, who represents indicted lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, wrote of Mr. Nifong: “He created an actual conflict between his professional duty to search for the truth and his personal, vested interest in getting elected.”

Mr. Osborn also asked the court to throw out the photo identifications made by the accuser, a 27-year-old student at a nearby university who had been hired to strip at a March 13 lacrosse team party, where she says she was beaten and raped.

He called the police photo lineup “unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistake and misidentification” because the accuser was only shown photos of lacrosse players. Mr. Osborn said Mr. Nifong was improperly involved in the lineup and led police to violate their own policies.

A grand jury last month indicted Mr. Seligmann, a sophomore from Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty, a sophomore from Garden City, N.Y., on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual assault of the exotic dancer. The woman said she was attacked by three men, and Mr. Nifong has said he hopes to charge a third person soon.