New Delhi: More than 20 Election Petitions (EPs) have been filed and accepted across state high courts challenging the Lok Sabha election victories across various constituencies.
These include EPs filed by former Tamil Nadu CM O Panneerselvam to one moved against Union Minister of State Savita Thakur and another challenging the victory of Amritpal Singh, a detainee under the National Security Act.
The grounds for the petitions vary from discrepancies and missing information in affidavits of candidates to alleged manipulation in voting mechanisms. Victory margins in the EP cases also differ widely, from a mere 48 vote slender win to those with over two lakh.
Section 80-A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, permits a candidate or a voter to challenge the validity of an election result in the relevant HC within 45 days of declaration of results.
For 2024 Lok Sabha polls, this period ended last week.
STATE WISE petitions
West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra have several EPs filed, information received so far indicates. Nearly 4-5 EPs are learnt to have been filed by BJP candidates in Bengal alone. Case in point, BJP’s Abhijit Das is said to have moved a petition against Trinamool leader Abhishek Banerjee who won the polls from Diamond Harbour constituency.
In Cooch Behar, former Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nisith Pramanik is learnt to have filed a petition challenging the victory of Trinamool’s Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia.
In Arambagh, it is Arup Kanti Digar who has alleged vote rigging in polls which he lost to Trinamool candidate Mithali Bagh by 6,000 votes. BJP’s Rekha Patra and Hiran Chatterjee are also learnt to have moved EPs on Lok Sabha polls held in Basirhat and Ghatal constituencies, respectively. Minister of State Savitri Thakur is faced with an EP by Congress‘ Radhey Shyam Muvel on her victory from Dhar in Madhya Pradesh. Another EP has been moved against Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Chirag Paswan’s Hajipur victory in Delhi HC but jurisdiction issues may impact this case, given the constituency is in Bihar. Five EPs are learnt to have, in fact, been moved in Bihar challenging Lok Sabha victories in Banka, Aurangabad, Samastipur and Arrah.
In Tamil Nadu, three EPs have been filed with former CM O Panneerselvam who lost to K Navas Kani of IUML in Ramanathapuram constituency filing an EP against him. From Virudhnagar, it is DMDK’s Vijaya Prabhakaran, who has moved court on his 4,379 vote loss to Congress’ Manickam Tagore. He is also learnt to have sought EVM-VVPAT verification in the constituency.
In Tirunelveli, BJP’s Nainar Nagendran has moved court against Congress’ Robert Bruce who defeated him with a 1.66 lakh vote margin. In Punjab, independent candidate Vikramjeet Singh has moved an EP challenging the win of Amritpal Singh from Khadoor Shaib on grounds of using religious identity to seek votes.
Neighbouring Haryana also has two EPs filed, it is learnt.
In Assam, an EP has been filed by Congress’ Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Chaudhary who lost to BJP’s Kripanath Mallah by over 18,000 votes.
Four EPs are learnt to be filed in Maharashtra where Vinayak Raut has moved against Shiv Sena (UBT) Narayan Rane’s 47,858 vote win over him from Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg while SS-UBT’s Amol Kirtikar has gone to court over Ravindra Waikar’s (Shinde faction) 48-vote election win in Mumbai North-West constituency.
In Rajasthan, EPs are learnt to have been filed in Bharatpur and Jaipur Rural constituencies, won by Congress’ Sanjana Jadhav and BJP’s Rao Rajendra Singh, respectively.
ASSEMBLY petitions
There are EPs on assembly polls too with nearly a dozen in Odisha besides the Jajpur parliamentary constituency in the state.
The EP PROCESS
EPs can result in a six-year long disqualification of a winning candidate/sitting elected representative if the HC confirms an electoral malpractice. The most famous of such disqualifications was that of Indira Gandhi whose Rae Bareilly election win was declared null and void on June 12, 1975 on grounds of alleged electoral malpractice and resulted in the imposition of the Emergency.
