RK Nagar Bypolls: Actor Vishal tweets to PM Modi, President office after EC rejects his nomination

Chennai: Actor Vishal Krishna on Wednesday met the chief electoral officer and urged him to reconsider rejection of his nomination papers for the 21 December bypoll to the Radhakrishnan Nagar in Chennai. The actor also sought to raise the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ramnath Kovind’s office through the twitter handle. The vaccancy was caused following the death of then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on 5 December , last year.

To the people, I look upto, Hon @narendramodi & Hon @rashtrapatibhvn

I am Vishal,I hope u r aware of wats happening in the RK Nagar Election process in Chennai.

My nomination was accepted & later rejected. Totally unfair. I bring this to your notice & I hope justice prevails.

— Vishal (@VishalKOfficial) December 6, 2017

The actor also said he planned to meet Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit to lodge a “complaint,” on the matter. [caption id=“attachment_4244563” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of actor Vishal. PTI[/caption] The actor-producer met Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhoni at the Secretariat here and later said he had submitted a written complaint detailing Tuesday’s events that led to the ultimate rejection of his nomination papers. “People know what happened yesterday (Tuesday). They know how a rejected application was reconsidered before being rejected again. I have submitted a complaint to him (Lakhoni) on all that happened,” Vishal told reporters. On Tuesday, the office of the Returning Officer (RO) for RK Nagar bypoll witnessed drama when RO K Velusamy rejected Vishal’s nomination, prompting the actor to stage a dharna. Vishal had later claimed his nomination was accepted, and “thanked” the EC for the same. However, the RO, late in the night, said Vishal’s nomination had been rejected after a summary enquiry. In his order, he said only eight valid proposals had been received for the actor as against the required ten. Two among the 10 proposers — Sumathy and Deepan — appeared before him in person and claimed it was not their valid signatures (in the nomination papers), the RO said. “Sumathy and Deepan appeared before me in person and submitted a written representation stating that they had not proposed the nomination of Vishal Krishna,” Velusamy said. They submitted that their signatures had been forged, the order read. The veracity of an audio clip submitted by Vishal that Sumathy appeared before the RO on “coercion” by some persons and not on her own volition could not be ascertained, the election official said. Vishal said even if there were any discrepancies, the candidate should be given 24 hours, apparently indicating time should have been given for his response. The electoral officials “should reconsider rejection of nomination,” he added. Meanwhile, speaking to reporters at his residence, Vishal denied he was being ‘propped’ up by DMK, Kamal Haasan or sidelined AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran. The 40 year-old actor said he wanted to contest as a ‘representative’ of the people.