Stalin has also sought the invalidation of Babu’s election and a declaration that he be elected from the constituency. The Madras High Court is set to pronounce its order on September 3 on a plea by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin seeking 100 per cent counting of VVPAT slips in the Kolathur assembly constituency, where he suffered a defeat to TVK’s VS Babu in the state elections earlier this year.
These included a VVPAT unit stopping with an error message during a mock poll, a Control Unit allegedly failing to detect a Ballot Unit carrying Stalin’s name, and incomplete address tags on some EVM components. The Election Commission, however, has challenged the maintainability of Stalin’s writ petition. Its argument is that an election result can be questioned only through an election petition under the Representation of the People Act, and that Stalin ought to have followed that route within the prescribed time.
Stalin’s side has cited these discrepancies while seeking verification of all EVMs and counting of 100 per cent of the VVPAT slips.
The verification exercise also threw up a number of technical and procedural issues, according to Stalin’s petition.
