Election petition against result of Ottapidaram assembly seat dismissed as withdrawn

The Madras High Court Tuesday dismissed as withdrawn an election petition filed by a leader of the Puthiya Tamilagam party against the result of the Ottapidaram assembly constituency in 2016.

K Krishnansamy had challenged the victory of AIADMK candidate R Sundararajan over him by a narrow margin of 493 votes in the assembly elections held in May, 2016.

In his petition, Krishnaswamy had alleged Sundararajan had suppressed some information regarding sand quarry contract.

However, Sundararajan, a loyalist of ousted AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, had been disqualified along with 17 other MLAs in 2017 by the Tamil Nadu assembly speaker under the anti-defection law.

Though Ottapidaram constituency was declared vacant along with 17 other constituencies, taking the total vacancy in the assembly to 21, the EC recently announced byelections to only 18 segments.

The EC has left out three constituencies -- Ottapidaram Aravakurichi and Tiruparankundram -- citing pendency of election petitions related to them.

Krishnaswamy filed the petition seeking to withdraw his election petition so that byelection could be notified for Ottapidaram too.

The judge in his order said, "The petitioner is permitted to withdraw the election petition. Consequently the election petition is dismissed as withdrawn."