The victory of Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram from Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha election holds, the Madras High Court said today, cancelling a petition which challenged the former Union Minister’s Lok Sabha election win.
Raja Kannappan, who lost to Mr. Chidambaram that year, had approached the high court, alleging manipulation. He had alleged that the Congress leader was involved in cash distribution to voters and misused his power as Union Home Minister during that period. Mr. Chidamabaram, now a Rajya Sabha member, had refuted the allegations.
“The entire allegations made are imaginary and there is no evidence to any of it,” he said in March last year when he was cross-examined by the lawyers of the petitioner.
When asked about the declaration of election results and the delay in his constituency, the former minister said that he was not aware of the time when the election results were out and also in most of the places he knew it was only during that time the official results were announced.
Asked if he knew who was leading in the election, Mr. Chidambaram said that he did not remember as it has been 10 years since it took place.
Mr. Chidambaram was declared elected from Sivaganga, defeating Mr. Kannappan who contested on an AIADMK ticket by a slender 3,354 vote margin after a see-saw battle that went down to the wire. He has represented Sivaganga six times in the Lok Sabha. His son Karti Chidambaram is the current parliamentarian from Sivaganga. He won a second term in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
