Petition challenges result of 20 seats won by up to 5,000 votes

A writ petition in the Gujarat high court has challenged the election of candidates who won the recently held assembly elections with a margin of less than 5000 votes.

The petition challenges the election of twenty candidates who won from various seats with a slim margin. Amonng those are education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, Babubhai Bokhiria and Shailesh Parmar. It should be noted Chudasama won Dholka with a margin of 327 votes.

The other seats that saw the candidates winning with a slim margin of less than 5000 votes are Gariyadhar, Mandvi, Patan among others. The petition has raised questions about the Election commission’s procedure as well as the vote counting system.

Of the 20 seats that saw candidates winning with a margin of less than 5000 votes, at least 16 seats are such that the winning margin was as slims as 3000 votes or less.

Manish Doshi, Congress spokesperson said that they were forced to approach the Gujarat high court after the Election Commission and the respective returning officers did not pay heed to their complaints.

“In Dholka where the BJP candidate won with a slim margin of just over 300 votes, the postal ballots were not counted. When we raised the matter with the returning office he dismissed the issues,” said Doshi.

He said in all there were 14 seats where one or the other issue had cropped up. “Our demand for a recount was also dismissed by the election commission,” said Doshi.