HYDERABAD: Justice T Vinod Kumar of the Telangana High Court on Thursday ruled the election of BRS MLA Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy from the Gadwal Assembly constituency as invalid and declared BJP leader DK Aruna, who is incidentally his aunt, as the MLA in his place.
Additionally, the judge imposed a penalty of Rs 2.5 lakh on Krishna Mohan Reddy for the submission of a false affidavit to the returning officer and the joint collector, who also holds the role of the additional district magistrate for the 79-Gadwal Assembly constituency. Moreover, the court also directed the BRS leader to reimburse the petitioner, Aruna, Rs 50,000 for costs incurred.
In the 2018 Assembly elections, Aruna had contested on a Congress ticket but eventually lost to her nephew and the BRS (then TRS) candidate Krishna Mohan Reddy by a margin of around 28,000 votes. Subsequently, she filed an election petition demanding instructions to the Returning Officer to appropriately assess the paper trail of votes.
This came after an election agent had flagged the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) records and the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs). Justice Vinod Kumar clarified that as per the final list of votes, the petitioner Aruna, who had the second highest number of votes, will now be recognised as the victorious candidate for the Gadwal constituency. This declaration takes effect from December 12, 2018.
Will challenge the order in SC: BRS leader
Stating that the high court delivered an ex parte judgment without serving him notices, Krishna Mohan Reddy said that he would challenge the order in the Supreme Court. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he mentioned that he has yet to review the official copy of the judgment, and additionally stated that his adversaries had initiated the case against him in the high court.
Alleging that some politicians were indulging in ‘backdoor politics’, the BRS leader said he had won with a majority of 28,000 votes in the 2018 elections and exuded confidence that he would secure over 50,000 votes majority this time.