Karnataka High Court Orders Recounting Of Votes In Malur Assembly Constituency

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has set aside the election result of Malur Assembly Constituency, Kolar district, and has directed the Election Commission to conduct recounting of the votes within next 30 days and announce the result afresh.

At the same time, the Court has given a breather of 30 days to the sitting Congress MLA Nanje Gowda to approach the Supreme Court, till which time the court order will not be implemented.

The High Court judge Justice R Devadas came down heavily on the Election Officer, who failed to produce the video of the vote counting and directed the Election Commission to initiate stringent action against him.

The general elections to Karnataka Legislative Assembly was held on May 10 and the results were announced on May 13. The Congress candidate and sitting MLA Nanje Gowda won by a margin of only 250 votes.

In the initial confusion, the defeated BJP candidate Malur Manjunath Gowda conceded the defeat and came out of the counting center. However, one of his booth agents, who was closely monitoring the results of each booth and had taken down every EVM calculation, showed that there was an error in the tabulation of the votes, where the election officer had transferred BJP votes to Congress candidate.

When Manjunath Gowda went back inside the counting booth and wanted to see the official tabulation again, the election officer denied him the provision saying that he had already conceded the defeat and the results had been announced.

Manjunath approached the High Court and after over two years of hearing, the court has set aside the election results. Since the election officer had deleted the video of vote counting process, despite of the defeated candidate challenging it, the Court has directed the Chief Election Officer to initiate action against him.