Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin approached the Madras High Court on Monday challenging the election of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) candidate VS Babu from the Kolathur constituency in the 2026 Assembly elections.
Stalin Challenges Election Results in Kolathur
Stalin has called for the annulment of Babu’s election victory in Kolathur, demanding instead that he be declared the winner. This assertion follows the District Election Officer’s announcement that the verification process for the election was successful and adhered to established procedures, despite allegations of irregularities raised by Stalin.
He also alleged lapses in the chain of custody for another EVM: the carrying cases for the ballot unit and control unit had blank address tags, and officials affixed the seals on the reverse side, among other alleged irregularities. In the 2026 Assembly polls, Stalin, a three-time MLA from Kolathur, secured 74,202 votes (40.32% of the vote share), while Babu polled 82,997 (45.09%), with TVK winning by a margin of 8,795 votes. He said that on May 7, he had applied for checking and verification of the burnt memory/microcontroller of 14 EVMs. However, the authorities conducted the verification only on July 29, nearly three months after his application, he said. The former CM said in the plea that two of the 14 EVMs stopped functioning immediately after officials took them up for checking, which, according to him, required a technical diagnosis.
Stalin said in his plea that the ECI had issued administrative and technical SOPs for post-counting checking and verification of the burnt memory/microcontroller of EVM units, including ballot units, control units and VVPATs.
