B. Manickam Tagore. File
| Photo Credit: G. Moorthy
The Madras High Court on Tuesday (March 4, 2025) refused to reject an election petition filed by Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) founder Vijayakant’s son V. Vijaya Prabhakaran challenging the victory of Congress Member of Parliament (MP) B. Manickam Tagore from Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency in 2024.
Justice N. Sathish Kumar dismissed the application filed by the MP to reject the election petition and also rejected his another application to strike off almost all paragraphs from the plaint filed in support of the election petition on the ground that they were baseless allegations made without any tangible material.
The judge directed the MP and the election petitioner to submit draft issues by the next date of hearing so that the court could frame the issues to be decided in the election petition, conduct a full-fledged trial by examining the witnesses to find out the veracity of the allegations and then pronounce a final verdict.
Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency had witnessed a keenly-contested three-cornered fight between Mr. Tagore, Mr. Prabhakaran and actor R. Radikaa Sarathkumar of Bharatiya Janata Party. Mr. Tagore had polled 3,85,256 votes and had defeated his nearest rival Mr. Prabhakaran by a slim margin of 4,379 votes.
In his election petition, Mr. Prabhakaran had accused the Returning Officer V.P. Jeyaseelan of having succumbed to the pressure exerted by Ministers K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran, Thangam Thennarasu and P. Moorthy for furthering the prospects of the election of their alliance party candidate Mr. Tagore.
Mr. Prabhakaran had also raised other grounds such as improper acceptance of nomination paper by claiming that the MP had not disclosed all details regarding his assets and criminal cases, indulging in electoral corrupt practice such as bribing the voters through distribution of a ‘guarantee card’ and so on.
Paying cash for votes, booth capturing, malpractices during the counting of votes, improper rejection of postal ballots polled in favour of the election petitioner and alleged excess expenditure by the MP were the other grounds on which his election had been challenged.
However, in his affidavit, seeking rejection of the election petition and striking off the paragraphs in the plaint, Mr. Tagore had stated the guarantee card contained an assurance given by the Congress in its election manifesto and therefore such an assurance could not be termed as a corrupt practice.
He relied upon a catena of Supreme Court decisions to support his contention and said all other charges levelled by the election petitioner against him were vague and no election petition could be entertained on the basis of such baseless allegations made without submitting supporting materials.
The arguments did not cut ice with Justice Kumar who decided to take up the election petition for trial instead of dismissing it at the threshold.
Published – March 04, 2025 12:16 pm IST