A group of the members of the Tamil Nadu Medical Council has decided to approach the court, seeking action against the sitting members for rigging the elections to the council. The members say the sitting members have been preventing fair elections for two terms in a row now.
Seven of the 10-member council are elected and three are nominated by the government. The statutory body’s elections are held every five years through postal ballot. The council mails the ballot papers and the votes are also polled by post. More than 90,000 doctors are members of the council, which is considered the watchdog for the medical profession in the State.
In 2007, a similar complaint was raised by a few members and some of them, including paediatrician Rex Sargunam and former president C.M.K. Reddy, had filed a petition with the Madras High Court. The petition is pending with the court.
N. Lakshminarasimhan, a candidate, said, “We decided to go ahead with the elections as this time we insisted on posting the ballot papers by Speed Post instead of the usual ‘certificate of posting’ method. However, of the 80,000 ballots mailed, around 20,000 were returned as undelivered. And only 13,000 doctors have polled.”
According to him, the contestants had demanded verification, by the registrar of the council, of the number of ballot paper printed, posted and received. But it was not done.
The members have decided to approach the court on Wednesday to declare the election null and void and seek action against the registrar for colluding with the sitting members.
K. Prakasam, executive committee member of the council, said there was no irregularity and that the counting was proceeding smoothly. The results were expected at around midnight, he added.
Keywords: election rigging
