The Kerala High Court has begun trial proceedings into the charges of bogus voting in the 2016 Assembly elections to the Manjeshwaram constituency where Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) nominee P.B. Abdul Razak retained the seat with slender 89 votes margin over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aspirant K. Surendran.
The court has begun the trial proceedings by deciding to serve summons to 259 persons after Mr. Surendran filed a writ petition before P.N. Ravindran, who headed the Election Bench of the court, alleging that bogus votes had been cast in the names of 298 persons who are believed to be dead, not residing in the segment or away in the Gulf at the time of elections.
The court sought police protection to serve the summons to the suspected bogus voters in the wake of threats faced by the sever of the summons, a senior BJP leader told The Hindu here on Friday.
The decision to serve the summons was taken after the Manjeswaram Returning Officer recently approached the court stating that one U.A. Muhammed, a resident of Udyavar locality in Manjeshwaram panchayat, who expired in 2015 had cast his “vote” in the May 17, 2016 elections.
While the court had reportedly issued summons to 10 persons, only two persons presented themselves before the court only to state that they had not cast their votes in the elections.
