An Australian-based doctor has petitioned the Madras High Court, urging the Election Commission to facilitate special polling for individuals inadvertently excluded from the voter's list for the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.

In his plea, Suthanthira Kannan, a doctor residing in Australia, highlighted that upon returning to Coimbatore to exercise his fundamental right to vote, he and his wife discovered that their names were absent from the voter's list. Kannan emphasized that while his name had been listed in both the 2019 and 2021 voter's lists, it was inexplicably missing from the current one, attributing this to the arbitrary and inefficient manner in which the list had been compiled.

Kannan additionally argued that being deprived of the right to vote constitutes a violation of the fundamental rights enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution. He stressed that each individual holds a crucial role in the electoral process of selecting a Member of Parliament, a role that was unjustly denied to thousands of people during the elections in the state of Tamil Nadu on April 19, 2024.

Kannan further asserted that according to Section 22 of the Representation of the People Act, the electoral registration officer is obligated to afford the individual in question a fair opportunity to be heard before their name is removed from the voter's list.

He emphasized that this procedure is not merely a procedural requirement but is based on principles of natural justice. Kannan underscored that any violation of this procedure renders the action arbitrary and unlawful. Additionally, he highlighted that no such procedure had been undertaken in the current situation.

Therefore, Kannan requested the court to direct the Election Commission to provide an opportunity for individuals whose names were omitted from the voter's list to cast their votes by establishing a designated polling booth in the respective area. He also sought an injunction to halt the counting of votes and the announcement of results until such an opportunity was afforded to the affected individuals.

In the Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituency, BJP TN State President K Annamalai, CPI(M)'s PR Natarajan, DMK's P Rajkumar, AIADMK's Singai Ramachandran were the candidates.