Madras High Court rejects challenge to TVK MLA’s one-vote victory

The Madras High Court has rejected a petition challenging Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam MLA R. Seenivasa Sethupathy’s victory by one vote in the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election. Justice G.K.

Ilanthiraiyan allowed Sethupathy’s application to dismiss the challenge brought by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam candidate and former minister K.R. Periakaruppan. The petition alleged that a postal ballot intended for the Sivaganga district constituency was sent to another constituency with the same name.

Periakaruppan relied on an affidavit from a counting agent who said he had encountered one such postal vote. The court held that the allegation was unsupported by evidence establishing how the ballot was supposedly misdirected or what effect it had on the result. The judge accepted the argument that constituency numbers, rather than names alone, identify postal ballots for election officials.

He noted that Form 13C accompanying each ballot contains the constituency number, name, district and address. The court also referred to the procedures governing postal ballots. They are deposited at designated facilitation centres before election officials transport them, safeguards the judge said made confusion caused solely by identical constituency names difficult to establish.

The court found no material demonstrating a procedural breach that could have materially affected the election. It concluded that the allegation, without foundational evidence that a ballot was received in the wrong constituency and changed the result, did not provide a complete basis for the election petition. The petition was therefore rejected at the threshold, without proceeding to trial.

The decision preserves Sethupathy’s election victory in the Tirupattur constituency.