Actor Vishal Tweets to PM Modi, Prez Kovind on Rejection of His RK Nagar Bypoll Nomination

Chennai: The flip-flop over Actor Vishal Krishna's nomination papers for the December 21 RK Nagar bypoll continued as he sought to raise the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ramnath Kovind's office through Twitter.

The actor also met the chief electoral officer and urged him to reconsider the rejection.

The vacancy was caused following the death of then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on December 5, 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 (sic)," he said in the tweet.

The combative actor also said he planned to meet Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit to lodge a "complaint," on the matter.

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 on 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.

(With PTI Inputs)