The election authority in charge of RK Nagar assembly constituency on Tuesday night rejected actor Vishal Krishna’s nomination to contest the December 21 bypoll to the constituency after a summary enquiry.

In his order, the poll authority said required number of proposers had not validly proposed the candidature of Vishal Krishna and that the actor had been proposed only by eight valid proposers. “Hence, he has not fulfilled the conditions for valid nomination,” Returning Officer K Velusamy said in his order. “Therefore, I conclude that the nomination of Vishal Krishna is rejected upon my summary enquiry,” the official said in the order which was circulated to media.

The RO said two among the 10 proposers, Sumathy and Deepan, appeared before him in person and claimed that it was not their valid signatures (in the nomination papers). “Sumathy and Deepan appeared before me in person and submitted a written representation that they had not proposed the nomination of Vishal Krishna,” he 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.

The Tamil actor had earlier in the day claimed that his nomination for the R K Nagar bypoll here had been accepted by poll authorities after a scrutiny of a complaint in respect of signatures in the application form. “The nomination that I filed has been accepted. I thank the Election Commission,” he told reporters here.

When asked if Vishal’s claim was true, the returning officer told PTI earlier in the day that the matter was still under process. “No, it (Vishal’s representation challenging the rejection) is under process. We will issue orders,” he had said.

The nomination paper of late J Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Jayakumar was also rejected by the election authorities.

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