Confusion in names costs victory in Vellore civic polls

VELLORE: Confusion over the surnames of two female candidates with the same name resulted in declaring the wrong person as the winner of a village panchayat election in Pernambut in 2021.

Almost two years after, the mistake, which finally got noticed a couple of days ago, is viral on social media. While the poll officials are in a bind to rectify the mistake, the husband of the winner is planning to approach authorities.

Voting for the 24 village panchayats in Pernambut panchayat union was held on October 6, 2021, and the votes were counted at a private engineering college in Kondampalli a few days later.

The election officer for the Rajakkal village panchayat was Hariharan, the assistant headmaster of the primary school at Aravatla in the nearby hills. Following the counting, Jayanthi Venketesan was declared the winner. Along with the winner’s certificate, she became a member of ward 7 in the village.

However, the truth came to light when Prabakaran, the husband of another candidate who stood in the election accessed the TN Election commission website a couple of days ago. He found out that his wife, Jayanthi, had won with 119 votes whereas Jayanthi Venketesan had gotten only 64 votes. Two other candidates, M Lakshmi and M Kalaivani got 91 votes each.

Asked about this, Prabakaran recalled that both his wife and Venkesan’s wife had rushed to the election officer when the name Jayanthi was announced. He said the election officer then declared Jayanthi Venkatesan as the winner. “My wife who does not have much knowledge about this just came home.” He told DT Next.

Asked why he did not intervene, he said “I was not present then as I was in the hospital due to an illness. I also believed the verdict and the truth was revealed only when I accessed the TN election commission website. I now plan to approach the Pernambut BDO seeking justice.”

“The casual way in which the winner was declared without officials cross-checking

facts though there were only 4 candidates in the fray leaves a lot to be desired,” a senior district official said on condition of anonymity.

Despite repeated calls, the officer concerned for issuing election certificates could not be reached.