Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Wednesday made it clear to the Madras High Court that she was interested in pursuing an election petition, filed before her appointment as Governor, challenging the victory of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Kanimozhi from Thoothukudi parliamentary constituency early this year.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam was told by senior counsel Isaac Mohanlal, representing Dr. Soundararajan, that his client did not want to withdraw the election petition just because she had got appointed as a Governor after the filing of the case. She wanted to pursue the case and take it to its logical conclusion, counsel told the court.
The submission was made after the judge broached the subject when another election petition filed by an individual voter from Thoothukudi constituency challenging the victory of Ms. Kanimozhi was listed for admission on Wednesday. Pointing out that Dr. Soundararajan’s petition was already pending, he wanted to know whether she was interested in pursuing the matter.
After the clarification made by Mr. Mohanlal, on instructions, the judge said, that he would take up both the election petitions together for further hearing on Monday. He also made it clear that after service of notices to all the respondents in the two petitions, the hearing on the election petition would be conducted on a day-to-day basis and completed at the earliest.
In her petition, Dr. Soundararajan had claimed that Ms. Kanimozhi filed four different sets of nomination papers before the Returning Officer of the constituency and all the four had substantial defects including inconsistent claims with regard to the Assembly constituency in which she had registered herself as a voter.
Though the Returning Officer ought to have rejected the nomination papers, he ended up accepting one of them despite an objection filed by the election petitioner. The petitioner also alleged that the DMK men had distributed cash among the voters and thereby indulged in unfair electoral practices to get their leader elected as a Member of Parliament.
