NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court stayed the Gujarat High Court judgment scrapping the election of state law and education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama.
On a petition filed by the BJP leader, a bench comprising Justices Mohan M. Shantanagoudar and R. Subhash Reddy issued notice to the respondents, including Congress leader Ashwin Rathod, who challenged Chudasama’s election. Chudasama had won over Rathod from Gujarat’s Dholka assembly seat in 2017.
In Dholka, Chudasama had defeated Rathod by a narrow margin of 327 votes. In his petition, Rathod had claimed, among other things, that returning officer Dhaval Jani illegally excluded 429 postal ballots from consideration. He had pointed out that this number was higher than the victory margin of 327 votes.