In a significant legal development, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has demanded a response regarding a petition that challenges the election of Bhagwandass Sabnani, the BJP MLA from Bhopal South-West constituency. Justice Vishal Dhagat of the single bench issued notices to Sabnani among others in connection with this matter.
The petition was brought forth by PC Sharma, a candidate from the Congress party who was defeated in the election. Senior advocates Manoj Sharma, Vaibhav Dubey, and Rajmani Mishra represented Sharma’s case. They argued that the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) during the assembly elections was under scrutiny.
The petitioner lost by a margin of 15,833 votes and alleges that officials involved in the electoral process tampered with the EVMs used in the voting. It was claimed that the EVMs were subject to unauthorized interference as indicated by the fact that during the count, most of the EVMs showed a battery charge of 99%, while only a few displayed less than 80%. Interestingly, it was in these machines with less than 80% battery charge that the petitioner received more votes than the respondent.
Despite the entire counting process being recorded on CCTV, the footage has not been provided to the petitioner. This has raised suspicions of tampering with the EVMs to influence the election outcome fundamentally. Therefore, the petition suggests that the respondent’s election victory could potentially be declared void due to these allegations.
