Mystery shrouds misplaced ballot box in Kerala

This comes as ruling left-front candidate K P Mustafa had moved HC against the decision not to count 348 postal votes

A ballot box containing uncounted postal votes of the 2021 Assembly election at Perinthalmanna constituency in Malappuram district of Kerala was found misplaced.

The issue assumed much significance as ruling left-front candidate K P Mustafa, who lost to Indian Union Muslim League’s Najeeb Kanthapuram with a thin majority of 38 votes, had moved the high court against the decision not to count 348 postal votes citing procedural shortcomings.

The Pinarayi Vijayan led left-front, which won 99 seats, literally lost the century mark by a whisker owing to the defeat in Perinthalmanna. The constituency recorded the lowest victory margin in the 2021 Assembly election in the state.

The 348 postal votes were not counted in the election citing that serial numbers and signatures of polling officials were missing on it. The left-front candidate challenged it in the court and hence the ballots were kept in the strong room of Perinthalmanna treasury in three boxes.

One of the boxes was found missing on Monday as the officials were taking the boxes to produce before the high court on Tuesday.

It was later traced from the office of district joint registrar of cooperatives situated several kilometres away.

The official version is that the ballot was mistakenly taken along with election materials of a local body poll. The district collector issued a show cause notice to officials responsible and further action is likely to be taken.

Considering the case on Tuesday the Kerala High Court also took serious note of the matter and ordered that the ballot box should be kept in the court’s custody. The court also directed the election commission to be part of the case.

The misplacement of the ballots in question had triggered allegations and counter allegations by the election winner and runner-up of sabotage attempt.