In a setback to former Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin, the Madras High Court dismissed his writ petition to nullify the victory of TVK MLA VS Babu in Kolathur Assembly constituency in the 2026 polls on September 3. The first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan pronounced the orders. “The writ petition is dismissed as not maintainable,” the bench said.
The court’s order has dealt a blow to the main Opposition party, which was unseated by the debutant TVK led by actor-politician C Joseph Vijay in the April elections to the Assembly. Stalin filed the petition seeking the relief of nullifying the victory of TVK MLA and declaring him as the winner on the grounds of malfunctioning, mismatch and discrepancies among the three units of electronic voting machines (EVMs) during the post-counting verification