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File photo of Dayanidhi Maran
| Photo Credit: S.R. Raghunathan
The Madras High Court on Friday (August 30, 2024) ordered notice, returnable by September 27, 2024, to MP Dayanidhi Maran on an election petition filed by M.L. Ravi of the Desiya Makkal Sakthi Katchi (DMSK), challenging his election from the Chennai Central parliamentary constituency in June this year.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh passed the orders after it was brought to his notice that the petitioner was one of the contestants in the Lok Sabha elections held this year and that the present plea had been filed on multiple grounds, including alleged corrupt practices.
The petitioner’s counsel T. Sivagnanasambandan said the MP’s political party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had issued a full-page advertisement in all the leading dailies on April 19, 2024 – the day of polling – and claimed that such conduct amounted to corrupt practice.
He brought to the notice of the court that the election rules insist on concluding campaigns 48 hours before the hour fixed for the conclusion of polling and therefore, the advertisement published on the day of polling was in violation of the rules.
In his petition, the litigant said the intention behind maintaining a ‘silence period’ before the day of polling was to let the voters take a decision without being influenced by external stimuli, but the party to which the MP belonged had blatantly violated the rule.
Listing out the other grounds on which the election had been challenged, the petitioner claimed that Mr. Maran had stuck stickers on almost every other house in his constituency during the election campaign but had not included the expenditure in his account.
Even if each sticker was valued at ₹15, and assuming that there were around 3,90,000 houses in the constituency, the total value of the stickers would come to around ₹58.50 lakh. This amount had not been included in the expenditure statement of the MP, he complained.
The petitioner further alleged that the MP had not disclosed the money spent on 1,153 booth agents towards their food and refreshment expenses and the rent paid for tables and chairs. Stating that around 10,000 balloons were used in one of the campaigns, he said that expense too had not been disclosed.
He urged the court to declare the election of Mr. Maran as null and void for having indulged in corrupt electoral practices by suppressing his expenses.
Another election petition
Hearing yet another election petition filed by Nainar Nagendran of the BJP, Justice G. Jayachandran on Friday ordered notice, returnable by four weeks, to MP C. Robert Bruce, who represents the Tirunelveli parliamentary constituency.
The BJP candidate had challenged the election of Mr. Bruce on the ground of alleged suppression of a criminal case, as well as certain assets, and claimed that it had materially affected the result of the polls, in which the petitioner got defeated by a margin of 1,65,620 votes.
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