Madras HC Upholds TVK’s R Seenivasa Sethupathy’s One-Vote Victory Over Former DMK Minister K R Periakaruppan In Tirupattur

Chennai: In a setback to former DMK Minister K R Periakaruppan, the Madras High Court on Monday upheld the victory of his nearest TVK rival R Seenivasa Sethupathy by just a single vote in Tirupattur Assembly constituency in the 2026 general elections. While Sethupathy had polled 83,375 votes, Periakaruppan had secured 83,374 votes in the tightly fought contest.

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Periakaruppan had filed an election petition seeking to set aside Sethupathy’s victory from Tirupattur segment in Sivaganga district in south Tamil Nadu claiming a postal vote belonging to his constituency had been erroneously accounted for in another similarly-named constituency in Tiruppattur district in north Tamil Nadu. 

Passing orders on an application filed by Sethupathy to reject the Election Petition, Justice G K Illanthiraiyan held there was no discrepancy in the accounting of postal votes registered in the two constituencies in different parts of Tamil Nadu, which bore the same name.

During the hearing of the case, the counsel for the victorious candidate had argued that the former Minister 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. It was pointed out that 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.

To substantiate this, the counsel said while Tirupattur constituency in Tirupattur district was identified as constituency number 50, the similarly-named Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district was identified as constituency number 185. So the constituency number became the key identifier and not the name. The voters casting postal votes are required to submit Form 12 to the Returning Officer of the respective constituencies and hence there was no scope for any confusion as to which constituency he or she was voting for. Further the postal ballots contain the full address of the Returning Officer of the relevant constituency pre-printed.

“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,” the counsel had argued.