M.K. Stalin Moves Madras High Court Seeking 100% VVPAT Count in Kolathur

DMK president M.K. Stalin has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court seeking a 100% counting of VVPAT slips in the Kolathur Assembly constituency and requesting the court to declare him the returned candidate after nullifying the election of TVK MLA V.S. Babu.

In the 2026 Assembly election, Mr. Stalin finished second in Kolathur with 74,202 votes, losing to Mr. Babu, who secured 82,997 votes. Following the results declared on May 4, Mr. Stalin submitted an application on May 7 seeking the verification of 14 of the 286 EVM sets—representing 5% of the machines—used in the constituency, in line with Supreme Court guidelines allowing runners-up to seek microcontroller checks.

In his petition, Mr. Stalin highlighted that the verification process commenced only on July 29, nearly three months after his application. He stated that the delay prejudiced his legal rights. Senior counsel N.R. Elango was appointed as his representative for the verification process.

During the verification, one VVPAT unit reportedly stopped functioning during a mock poll on July 30, and another unit failed on July 31. Mr. Stalin stated that his representative received no explanatory report from Bharat Electronics Limited engineers or other authorities regarding these failures and was merely asked to pick alternate EVMs for verification.

The petition also cited other irregularities, including an EVM where address tags on the carrying cases were blank, new, and sealed on the reverse side rather than the front. Furthermore, on August 5, a ballot unit bearing Mr. Stalin's name reportedly failed to detect the control unit. Despite requests on August 4 to verify sets from six additional polling stations, the District Election Officer concluded the verification process on August 5 without resolving the issues.

Mr. Stalin maintained that his writ petition is maintainable despite Article 329(b) restrictions because it challenges the post-result administrative and technical verification process rather than the general election process itself. He has also filed a separate writ petition challenging the constitutional validity of specific provisions in the Election Commission of India's Standard Operating Procedures for EVM verification.