Justice K. Lakshman of Telangana High Court on Tuesday dismissed the rejection petition filed by Minister for Scheduled Caste Development Koppula Eshwar in response to an election petition seeking to set aside his election from Dharmapuri constituency in 2018.
The election petition was filed by Congress nominee from Dharmapuri Adluri Laxman Kumar who lost to Mr. Eshwar with 441 votes. Eshwar of ruling TRS and Laxman of Congress secured 70,579 votes and 70,138 respectively in that election held in 2018.
While the election results were declared on December 11, 208, a month later the Congress candidate filed an election petition in the High Court seeking a direction to set aside Mr. Eshwar’s election. The Congress candidate contended that the election authorities depended on VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trial) slips to count the votes stating that three Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) failed.
