Tirupattur TVK MLA wins by single vote: Madras High Court reserves orders to dismiss election petition

The winning TVK candidate in Tirupattur Assembly constituency in Sivaganga district, Seenivasa Sethupathy, receives the certificate from the returning officer in May. File | Photo credit: Special arrangement

The Madras High Court has reserved its orders to dismiss an election petition filed against him winning from Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district by a narrow margin of one vote in the 2026 polls, following a plea by Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), R. Seenivas Sethupathy.

Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan reserved his verdict on an application to dismiss an election petition filed by former Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) minister KR Periakaruppan, who claimed that he lost the election mainly due to the existence of two Legislative Assembly constituencies with the same name “Tirupattur” in Tamil Nadu.

Mr. Sethupathy was declared elected after securing 83,375 votes against 83,374 votes obtained by Mr. Periakaruppan. However, the DMK candidate alleged that a postal vote belonging to Tirupattur constituency in Tirupattur district was inadvertently sent to Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district.

Assisted by advocate Pranjal Agarwal, senior counsel V. Raghavachari gave reasons for dismissing the election petition and said the election petitioner presented a “highly improbable” scenario where a postal vote belonging to one constituency was sent to another constituency just because of their matching names.

He argued that under the 1961 Rules of Conduct of Elections, it is extremely difficult to lose the identity of an intended constituency by introducing multiple independent identifiers that could enable the authorities to determine the constituency to which a postal ballot belongs.

“Constituency Number, Key Identifier”

Counsel pointed out that Tirupattur constituency in Tirupattur district was identified as constituency number 50, while Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district was identified as constituency number 185. He argued that the key identifier was the constituency number and not the name.

He said that every voter who intends to exercise his right to vote through postal ballot has to submit an application in Form 12 to the concerned Returning Officer and therefore the constituency is strongly determined even before the postal ballot is issued to the voters.

In addition, postal ballots are pre-printed with the full address of the returning officer of the relevant constituency without voters having to fill them in by hand, and the postal envelopes are too clearly marked with the constituency name, number, district and full address of the returning officer.

“This means that a postal ballot is not an anonymous page that can normally be considered as belonging to a constituency that receives it by chance, coincidence or otherwise,” Mr Raghavachari said, adding that postal envelopes are transported by election officials.

The senior counsel also argued that the election petitioner has not submitted any material except an affidavit filed by Tirupattur district DMK candidate A. Nallathambi S. Rajendran, who claimed to have come across one postal vote belonging to ward number 185 in constituency number 50.

“There is no basis for the claim that exactly one postal vote was received elsewhere in the similarly named constituency,” the senior counsel said, wondering how Mr Periakaruppan came to know that a single postal vote was cast in his favor when the postal vote is protected in a nested cover system.

Published – 19 Sep 2026 12:57 IST