In a never encountered electoral twister, the Madras High court had ordered the Election commission of India to recount the postal votes that were registered in Tamil Nadu's Radhapuram legislative constituency during 2016 state general elections.

The High court bench headed by Justice G Jayachandran had today delivered its directive to the Election commission with accordance to the petition filed by Appavu, the then DMK candidate who lost the prospect in Radhapuram to his rival AIADMK candidate in the recorded thinnest margin of 49 votes. After having been lost to his opposite AIADMK candidate Inbadurai, DMK's Appavu had filed his petition in state's top judicial body with the alleged irregularities reportedly committed while counting the votes and through his petition, he had asked the court to issue order to the commission on recounting the votes.

In his petition, he had cited that as per the electoral norms, the postal votes have to be counted first before counting the votes recorded in EVM's and said that there were few objections and accusations raised both by DMK and AIADMK during the counting had started and by citing the objections, the authorities had stopped counting the postal votes and he had accused the electoral officers to act in favor of AIADMK government after the government had gained majority in rest of the constituencies.

He further indicated that the his party agents were abruptly sent out from the counting hall after they had requested the authorities to count the postal votes following which they apparently surrounded by the paramilitary forces and state police officers prior to which we were asked to vacate the premises from which he had claimed that there were the possibilities of irregularities committed during the counting of postal votes where, he had mentioned that the electoral officer had pronounced about 200 postal votes which were favor for him as invalid further to which, Inbadurai, the candidate of ruling AIADMK party was declared as the winning candidate with very low margin of 49 votes, the lowest margin recorded in 2016 elections.

In its order, the Madras High court had asked the Election commission to deposit the control devices of the EVMs counted in the rounds of 19,20 and 21 along with the postal ballots before the court's Head registrar by October 4, 2019. The recent reports had said that the sitting MLA of Radhapuram, AIADMK's Inbadurai had appealed in the high court to challenge its judgement on recounting the votes in his constituency.

In 2016 state legislative elections, AIADMK party's Inbadurai had flagged his victory by securing 69,590 votes while DMK's Appavu had lost the election by acquiring 69,541 votes.