SIVAGANGA: In the end, every vote made it count, literally, in Tirupattur constituency in Sivaganga district when TVK candidate R Seenivasa Sethupathy defeated DMK minister KR Periyakaruppan by just one vote in the Tamil Nadu assembly election. While Sethupathy secured 83,375 votes, Periyakaruppan polled 83,374 votes.The fight, which dragged on till 1.30am, was between DMK and TVK from the word go. Initially, Periyakaruppan led with 3,801 votes, followed by Sethupathy with 2,899 votes, a margin of 902. The upward trend for Periyakaruppan continued till round 16, with intermittent ups and downs for both candidates. From round 17, Sethupathy gained a lead, with the margin averaging between 20 and 1,500 votes. The gain continued till the end of the last round, 30. Sethupathy led with 819 votes when counting of EVMs ended, securing a total of 83,010 votes, while Periyakaruppan secured 82,191 votes.With the addition of postal ballots of 1,183 for Periyakaruppan and 365 for Sethupathy, the final count totaled 83,374 votes for Periyakaruppan and 83,375 for Sethupathy, making the latter by just 1 vote.On the long delay for declaring results, district election officer and collector K Porkodi told TOI that mock polls for two EVMs were not cleared while the control unit of one of the EVMs was not properly functioning. Hence, they had to count votes from VVPAT. “Apart from that, when the result is with a margin of one vote, as per ECI guidelines, we were made to re-verify the 306 rejected postal ballots,” the collector said. As counting agents objected, she was called in to ease the situation. “I clearly explained to the political parties the rules and regulations mandated by ECI, and they agreed to go through the process,” said Porkodi.She stated that when re-verification of ballots was done and no valid votes were there to count, the margin of victory remained ‘one’. “In this situation, candidates have the right to ask for a recount, but the decision should be made by the returning officer. However, in Tirupattur, the returning officer decided not to recount, and he clearly explained the reason with a written explanation,” she added.
