AHMEDABAD: A BJP candidate was again declared a winner in the recounting of votes of a ward seat of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) in Gujarat on Saturday, following a Supreme Court order on a plea by a Congress candidate, more than a year after the polls were held.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation election were held in January 2021.
Congress candidate Jagdish Mohnani from a seat in ward number 14 of Kubernagar lost to Gitaben Chavda of the BJP in the recounting of votes conducted on Saturday, following an order passed by the Supreme Court for the same.
"The number of votes polled by the two candidates remained unchanged from the counting held in February last year. Gitaben Chavda won with 17,656 votes, while Mohnani polled 16,992 votes," an official of the state election commission said.
Earlier on April 26, the Supreme Court had ordered recounting of votes as an "appropriate course of action to quell all doubts in the election process".
Mohnani was first declared a winner in a counting carried out on February 23 last year, due to clerical error whereby votes polled in the ninth round were not added to the tally.
A few days later, on February 26, the returning officer issued an order stating that Chavda was the actual winner with higher votes, and that Mohnani was "wrongly declared a winner due to arithmetical error" committed by the returning officer.
Mohnani had then approached the Gujarat High Court, challenging the election officer's move to revise his decision by declaring another candidate as elected after announcing the results under the provisions of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations (Conduct of Elections) Rules, 1994.
In its submission before the courts, the State Election Commission had said that in the 10th and final round of counting carried out on February 23, 2021, instead of taking the cumulative total of the 9th round, the total of the 8th round was added as cumulative base due to a clerical error.
When the cumulative of the ninth round was added as a base for the 10th round, the number of votes received by Chavda was higher than that of the Congress candidate, it said.
In the AMC, the ruling BJP had won 159 seats, and Congress won 24 seats in the election to the local bodies held in January last year.