Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday—in connection with the Assembly election result of Maniktala constituency— directed the Election Commission (EC) to preserve all documents, equipments and devices as the election is under challenge. The court said that these "shall be preserved by the concerned authority till the disposal of the election petitions".
The next hearing of the case has been set for August 8.
On July 3, a petition was filed by BJP candidate Kalyan Chaubey alleging irregularities in the poll process. He sought recounting of votes of Maniktala constituency, which he lost to Trinamool's Sadhan Pande.
The case was heard in the court of Justice Joy Sengupta.
Sadhan Pande, the Trinamool Congress candidate had won the polls with 67,577 votes with a margin of 20,238. BJP candidate Chaubey was the runners up.
According to BJP candidate Chaubey, he saw the Trinamool Congress candidate leading with 3,363 votes. But in the final result, he won by close to 20,000 votes.
After the results were announced, the BJP candidate from Maniktala had written to the Election Commission on May 5 requesting to preserve the counting documents.