CHENNAI: As counting of votes for election to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is on, a controversy has erupted over the presence of 47 excess votes found inside a sealed ballot box from Tirupur district.A group of lawyers staged a protest near the Madras high court on Tuesday, demanding an inquiry into the issue. Three candidates — advocates G Mohanakrishnan, Ashok and D Saravanan — also made a representation to the High-Power Election Committee appointed by the Supreme Court to conduct the election, headed by former Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh high court Justice Rajiv Shakdher.The lawyers wanted the committee to immediately probe as to how 47 extra votes were found in the ballot box and demanded action against those responsible for the irregularity. Seeking fairness and transparency in the counting process, they demanded a re-poll in Tirupur district.“Till then, the counting of votes in Tirupur district must be stopped. Further, the votes secured by the candidates from Tirupur district shall not be considered as a valid vote until a final conclusion is arrived on this issue,” they added.However, returning officer and former judge of Madras high court Justice KN Basha ruled out any malpractice and said: “Clearly nothing wrong happened. It was a small error; duplicates of 47 ballot papers were added inadvertently. The error was noticed by the Tirupur district election observer and polling officer. They segregated the duplicate unused ballot papers and bundled them separately before sending it to Chennai for counting.““As we (officers in Chennai) are not aware of the same, it came to light only during counting. Immediately, we informed the representatives of all the candidates present and stopped counting. We offered an explanation for almost half a day, and the unused duplicate ballot papers were removed,” he added.“Now counting process has resumed. The entire process is live-streamed. There is no possibility of malpractice. Counting is a cumbersome process since a preferential voting system is followed,” he said.
