Actor Vishal tweets to PM, Prez office on nomination rejection
Actor Vishal Krishna met the chief electoral officer on Wednesday and urged him to reconsider rejection of his nomination papers for the December 21 bypoll to the Radhakrishnan Nagar here.
The actor also sought to raise the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ramnath Kovind’s office through his Twitter handle. The vacancy was caused following the death of then chief minister Jayalalithaa on December 5 last year.
“To the people, I look upto, Hon @narendramodi & Hon @rashtrapatibhvn... I am Vishal,I hope u r aware of wats happening in the RK Nagar Election process in Chennai. My nomination was accepted & later rejected. Totally unfair. I bring this to your notice & I hope justice prevails,” he said in the tweet.
The actor also said he planned to meet Tamil Nadu governor Banwarilal Purohit to lodge a “complaint” on the matter.
The actor-producer met Tamil Nadu chief electoral officer Rajesh Lakhoni at the Secretariat here and later said he had submitted a written complaint detailing Tuesday’s events that led to the ultimate rejection of his nomination papers.
“People know what happened. They know how a rejected application was reconsidered before being rejected again. I have submitted a complaint to him (Lakhoni) on all that happened,” Vishal told reporters.
CHENNAI:
The office of the Returning Officer (RO) for RK Nagar bypoll witnessed drama on Tuesday when RO K Velusamy rejected Vishal’s nomination, prompting the actor to stage a dharna. Vishal had later claimed his nomination was accepted, and “thanked” the EC for the same. However, the RO, late in the night, said Vishal’s nomination had been rejected after a summary enquiry.
In his order, he said only eight valid proposals had been received for the actor as against the required 10. Two among the 10 proposers — Sumathy and Deepan — appeared before him in person and claimed it was not their valid signature (in the nomination papers), the RO said.
The veracity of an audio clip submitted by Vishal that Sumathy appeared before the RO on “coercion” by some persons and not on her own volition could not be ascertained, the election official said. Vishal said even if there were any discrepancies, the candidate should be given 24 hours, apparently indicating time should have been given for his response.