TRIVANDRUM, India, 1 November 2006 — The Kerala High Court yesterday annulled the election of former federal minister P.C. Thomas to Parliament in 2004 saying he had incited religious sentiments to win it.
The court also declared his immediate opponent P.M. Ismail of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), who challenged the election, as the winner. The court gave Thomas one month to appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court.
Thomas, who once led the Indian Federation of Democratic Parties, a partner in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, was the junior law minister under former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
He was accused of displaying his photographs with Pope John Paul II and Mother Theresa throughout his Moovattupuzha constituency in the three-cornered contest. The court also accepted Ismail’s argument that Thomas used vehicles to ferry voters to the polls, which is illegal under India’s electoral rules.
The former minister won the election by 529 votes. Son of late Congress leader P.T. Chacko — a revered figure among Christian farmers — he got 256,411 votes as against Ismail’s 255,882.
Kerala Congress (Mani) candidate Jose K. Mani, son of former minister K. M. Mani, came third with 209,880 votes in the predominantly Christian party’s traditional stronghold.
Ismail’s lawyer G. Janardhana Kurup said Thomas had made communal and religious appeals to the voters and had also published a calendar containing his photograph along with the pictures of the Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa.
Pamphlets appealing to the Catholics were distributed and his election expenses exceeded the permissible limits, which are corrupt practices under the Representation of People Act. Some 50 witnesses gave statements against the former minister in the court, Kurup said.
Thomas said he would move the Supreme Court as soon as he gets a copy of the verdict. “I’m quite confident that the court’s observations are wrong. I have to check on what grounds the court reached this conclusion,” he said.
His election was hailed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that leads the NDA as a breakthrough in its efforts over the years to open account in the southern Indian state.
Thomas was earlier elected on the KC (M) ticket and later he quit that party to form the IFDP, joining with four other independent lawmakers. The IFDP finally got an entry into the NDA and Thomas was inducted into his Cabinet by Vajpayee.
Just before the Kerala Assembly elections six months ago, he joined the Kerala Congress (Joseph) and got a backdoor entry into the Left Democratic Front (LDF) which is now in power in Kerala.
“The fact that we both belong to the LDF has nothing to do with the case,” Ismail said dismissing chances of fissures in the LDF that the CPI-M leads in Kerala. “This is a historic victory for all those who believe in democracy and secular values,” he added.
