TVK MLA R. Seenivasa Sethupathy.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The Madras High Court on Monday (September 28, 2026) rejected an election petition filed against the victory of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) MLA R. Seenivasa Sethupathy from Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district by a razor-thin margin of just one vote in the 2026 Tamil Nadu Asepolls.
Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan allowed an application filed by the TVK MLA to reject the election petition filed by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) candidate and former Minister K.R. Periakaruppan, who contended that he lost the polls primarily because of the existence of two Legislative Assembly constituencies with the same name ‘Tirupattur’ in Tamil Nadu.
Mr. Sethupathy was declared elected on securing 83,375 votes as against 83,374 votes garnered by Mr. Periakaruppan. However, the DMK candidate claimed a postal vote belonging to the Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district had been inadvertently sent to the Tirupattur constituency in Tirupattur district and that the wrongly transferred vote was not sent back to the right constituency.
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Listing out the reasons for seeking a rejection of the election petition, senior counsel V. Raghavachari, assisted by advocates Dixita Gohil and Pranjal Agarwal, argued the election petitioner had presented a “highly implausible” scenario of a postal vote belonging to one constituency having been sent to another constituency just because of their identical names.
He contended the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, make the identity of the intended constituency extremely difficult to lose by pressing into service multiple independent identifiers, which could enable the authorities to determine the constituency to which a postal ballot belongs.
The counsel pointed out the Tirupattur constituency in Tirupattur district was identified as constituency number 50, whereas the Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district was identified as constituency number 185. He asserted that the constituency number, and not the name, was the key identifier.
He said every voter who intends to exercise his/her franchise through the postal ballot must make an application, using Form 12, to the Returning Officer concerned and therefore, the constituency gets determined emphatically even before the issuance of a postal ballot to an elector.
Further, the postal ballots have the full address of the Returning Officer of the relevant constituency pre-printed, without the need for the voters to fill it up by hand, and the postal covers too clearly mention the constituency name, number, district, and the full address of the Returning Officer.
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“This means the postal ballot is not an anonymous page, which can ordinarily be treated as belonging to a constituency which happens to receive it by accident, coincidence, or otherwise,” Mr. Raghavachari said and added that it was the election officials who transport the postal covers.
The senior counsel also argued the election petitioner had not produced any material but for an affidavit filed by Tirupattur district DMK candidate A. Nallathambi’s counting agent S. Rajendran, who claimed to have come across one postal vote belonging to constituency number 185 at constituency number 50.
“There’s no basis for the claim that exactly one postal vote was received elsewhere in a similarly named constituency,” the senior counsel had said and wondered how Mr. Periakaruppan came to know that the single postal vote was cast in his favour when the postal vote gets safeguarded in a nested cover system.
Published – September 28, 2026 11:30 am IST
