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The Madras High Court received petitions challenging the victory of Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay in the Perambur Assembly constituency in the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections.
One of the petitioners included Vijay’s primary opponent in Perambur constituency, DMK leader RD Shekar. Two are voters challenging Vijay’s victory.
Vijay's win marked a historic first for him in electoral politics. The actor-politician contested from two seats, Perambur and Tiruchirappalli East, and won both. He later gave up Tiruchirappalli East and kept Perambur, which meant a by-election in the seat he vacated.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) data shows Vijay won Perambur with 1,20,365 votes, ahead of DMK's RD Shekar, who got 66,650 votes. Vijay’s margin of victory was 53,715 votes, one of the biggest in the polls.
An election petition challenges a candidate's victory, and only the High Court can hear such cases, as set out under the Representation of the People Act, 1951. As per the Representation of the People Act, an elected candidate can continue to hold office unless the High Court, after a full-fledged trial, sets aside the election.
Earlier, another election petition challenging Vijay’s victory from the Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) East Constituency had been filed by the DMK candidate, Dr Inigo S Irudayaraj, who lost to Vijay by 27,416 votes.
Tamil Nadu is also currently witnessing a controversy over alleged attempts at bribery. On July 1, three persons were arrested for allegedly attempting to bribe a TVK MLA with Rs 35 crore to influence his vote on a proposed resolution against the Assembly Speaker.
This article was written by a student interning with TNM.