The Madras High Court has ordered the Election Commission of India to recount the postal votes polled during the 2016 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections in the Radhapuram Assembly Constituency. The verdict was delivered on Tuesday by Justice G Jayachandran, on a case filed by Appavu, the DMK candidate who lost to the AIADMK candidate in that election by just 49 votes. Appavu had alleged irregularities in the counting process in his constituency after he lost IS Inbadurai, and sought a court order to initiate recounting of votes.
AIADMK’s Inbadurai won the Radhapuram seat securing 69,590 votes while Appavu got 69,541 votes. In his petition, Appavu stated that the postal votes are to be counted first and claimed that when postal votes for Radhapuram were counted, a few objections were raised by both DMK and AIADMK and hence postal votes were not counted.
He also alleged that while counting the votes registered in the EVMs, the poll results of other constituencies in the state started trickling in, indicating an AIADMK win, and hence the poll officials started acting in a manner that supported AIADMK.
Adding that later that afternoon when he and his party agents requested the officer at the counting centre to count the postal votes, they were ousted from the premises by paramilitary and police personnel, Appavu claimed that rounds 19 to 21 were counted after they were ousted and Inbadurai was announced the winner. Alleging huge irregularities in the counting of postal votes, Appavu stated that officer at the centre declared 200 postal votes which were cast in his favour invalid, and thereby declared Inbadurai the winner by a margin of 49 votes.
The order, which was delivered on Tuesday, stated that the control devices of the EVMs counted in rounds 19, 20 and 21, and the postal ballots, be deposited with the Head Registrar of the court by October 4.
AIADMK, which was led by the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, had bagged 134 of the 234 seats in the Assembly, while the DMK won 89 seats in the 2016 elections.
Source: The News Minute