Telangana High Court on Monday passed an order permitting State Election Commission to treat ballot papers with ‘distinguish mark’ as valid along with those having mark of Swastik, paving way for announcement of the result of Neredmet division in GHMC.
The counting of Neredmet division was taken up along with other 149 divisions of GHMC, to which elections were held recently, on Friday. A day before counting, the SEC issued a circular instructing returning officers to treat ballot papers with ‘distinguish mark’ as valid other than those having swastik mark.
Challenging this circular, two persons belonging to BJP moved a House Motion. Justice A. Abhishek Reddy, who heard the writ petition, passed interim direction not to declare results of the division in which disputed ballot papers are more than the number of votes secured by the wining candidate.
In Neredmet division, TRS candidate candidate got a lead of 504 over the BJP nominee. But the disputed ballot papers were 544. In compliance with the court order, election authorities withheld result of the division.
Meanwhile, the SEC filed an appeal petition before a division bench which referred the matter back to the single judge.
After hearing contentions of senior counsels D. Prakash Reddy and G. Vidyasagar Rao representing the petitioners and the SEC respectively, Justice A. Abhishek Reddy passed order to treat ballot papers with distinguish mark as valid. He stated in the order that election authorities had the power to decide upon the marks to be used on ballot papers.
With the judge’s order, the authorities are likely to count the 544 ballot papers with distinguish mark and announce the result.
