Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
DMK president MK Stalin on Monday moved the Madras High Court, challenging the election of TVK candidate V S Babu from the Kolathur Assembly constituency. In his petition, Stalin sought to have Babu’s election declared void and asked the court to declare him duly elected from the constituency.
Stalin also challenged the District Election Officer’s order stating that the checking and verification of electronic voting machines used in Kolathur had been completed successfully on August 5. He alleged that serious irregularities came to light during the verification process and said his objections were not addressed.
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According to the petition, after the election and declaration of results, Stalin nominated senior advocate N R Elango as his authorised representative to check and verify the burnt memory or microcontroller in the Control Unit, Ballot Unit and VVPAT machines for 14 selected EVM sets from Kolathur.
Stalin said that during the process, Elango found what the petition described as grave and alarming irregularities and immediately wrote to the District Election Officer about them. He said that despite this, the officer later declared that the checking and verification had been carried out successfully and completed in line with the prescribed procedure.
On August 6, Stalin wrote to the District Election Officer setting out the specific failures that had come to light. He said the certificates issued by the engineer could not be treated as technical or failure reports explaining the causes of the failures, and rejected the officer’s stand that the exercise had been completed successfully.
In the petition, Stalin said the impugned order had been passed mechanically, without replying to the clarifications sought and objections raised through his authorised representative. He also asked the court to direct the authorities to conduct 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips for Kolathur and the checking and verification of all 286 machines used in the constituency. The case centres on his challenge to the declared result in Kolathur and the manner in which the post-result verification process was handled.
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
