Face the case says court to Chidambaram on 2009 LS poll case

Chennai, Jun 7: There seem to be trouble brewing for Home Minister P

when the Madras High Court refused to quash his petition that challenged his election from the Sivaganga constituency during the Lok Sabha elections in 2009. The 2009 elections were heavily contested with the petitioner Raja Kannappan raising doubts and alleging manipulation in the elections.

The verdict to go ahead with the probe on Chidambaram was passed by the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court based on the plea filed by AIADMK leader RS Raja Kannappan. The court stated, "The case relating to alleged rigging of polls by P Chidambaram will continue in the trial court as there are enough evidence to support the claims made by the petitioner."

Kannappan had lost to Chidambaram by a narrow margin and sought to declare the elections void and cited that the polls were manipulated and corrupt practices were undertaken by his election agents with his consent.

The AIADMK candidate had also sought a recounting of the votes especially in the Alangudi Assembly segment. Kannappan had attained 3,30,994 votes while Chidambaram got 3,34,348 votes, losing out by a margin of 3,354 votes. He had also claimed that the votes he secured in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th rounds of counting in Alangudi had been "ingeniously added to Chidambaram's kitty and vice versa".

The court agreed to remove two of the 29 allegations levelled against Chidambaram. Kannappan also slammed the election official of favouring Chidambaram and not publishing votes polled by the candidates in each round in Alangudi and some other segments.

OneIndia News