HC records Brijendra's statement in Uchana poll challenge

One year after he lost the Uchana Assembly seat, former Hisar MP and the then Congress candidate Brijendra Singh was cross-examined in the Punjab and Haryana High Court today on his petition to relook at 215 postal ballots that were rejected by the Returning Officer (RO), when he declared that BJP candidate Devender Attri had won.

Singh lost the election by 32 votes, the second lowest margin of loss in the country.

Stating before Justice Anoop Chitkara’s Bench that the RO was under obligation to re-verify the 215 rejected postal ballots, Singh said nearly 150 postal ballots had been cancelled simply on the grounds that the scanner could not scan the envelope that contained the ballots, which had been placed inside a larger main envelope.

The RO, he said, should have re-verified all votes that remained unopened and unaccounted for, especially since the election rules specify a procedure for the same.

Son of veteran Congress leader and former Union minister Birender Singh, Brijendra's narrow margin of loss assumes significance since 1,377 postal ballots were received in the October 2024 Assembly elections in Uchana Kalan. Of these, 1,158 were held valid and counted, and 636 votes were polled in his favour. However, the RO rejected 215 postal ballots.

His petition, originally raising multiple grounds, now hinges solely on the issue of “improper rejection” of the ballots.

The Congress leader was subjected to cross-examination for over two hours by Attri’s lawyer and senior advocate Satya Pal Jain. Jain was accompanied in the matter by counsel Dheeraj Jain.

Appearing before the Bench in his own petition, the bureaucrat-turned-politician asserted that the RO was “mandatorily required to re-verify the votes declared invalid” when the number of invalid votes — 215 — exceeded the margin of victory —32. He added that the process of re-verification of the rejected postal ballots was also required to be video-graphed, which was not done since these were not opened.

Jain, while cross-examining him, questioned why he did not raise a complaint before the result was declared or during his interactions with the media after leaving the counting centre. He also questioned the petitioner whether he had lodged a complaint regarding the counting by EVMs.

Jain also said the petitioner had not stated that he would have been declared victorious had the votes been counted. Brijendra maintained that his grievance was confined to the rejection of ballots, stressing that the number far outweighed the slender winning margin.

The petition, he said, made it clear that the counting of invalid votes would have resulted in his victory. The proceedings today signalled a crucial stage in the election trial, with Brijendra making it clear that he was pressing only the claim relating to the postal ballots’ rejection.

The way for the election petition to proceed was paved just about a week ago, when Justice Chitkara dismissed an application filed by the returned candidate seeking the dismissal of the amended election petition filed against him by Brijendra.

Holding that the matter disclosed a cause of action, Justice Chitkara had ruled: “The election petition discloses proper cause of action, and as such, this Court cannot dismiss the same under Order 7 Rule 11 CPC without putting it on trial.”

The Bench had made it clear that the objections raised were untenable, as the amendment did not expand the scope of the petition but only confined it.