State education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama on Monday withdrew his petition from the Supreme Court challenging the orders passed by the Gujarat High Court in an election petition filed by his rival Congress candidate Ashwin Rathod. Rathod has contended in his petition that Chudasama won the 2017 Assembly election by using unfair means and his election be declared void. The trial in the case is going on in the high court. However, in a desperate attempt the stall the trial, Chudasama moved the Supreme Court, but had to withdrew his petition. Earlier too, Chudasama had moved the apex court challenging the maintainability of the election petition of Rathod, but in vain. The high court had also rejected his plea and decided to move ahead with the trial in the case, a stand which has been already upheld by the Supreme Court. Interestingly, the minister had won the election by a wafer-thin margin of 327 votes and that too after the returning officer mysteriously rejected 429 votes through postal ballots, a number greater than the winning margin. As per the case details, the Assembly elections for the Dholka constituency was held on December 14, 2017, and the results were declared on December 18. It was the contention of Rathod that the rejection of 429 votes received through postal ballots by the returning officer was illegal and resulted in Chudasama winning the election. Rathod had contended that the then deputy collector of Dholka, Gaurang Prajapati, who was supposed to be the returning officer as per his designation, was removed after the election code of conduct was implemented. In place of Prajapati, one Dhavan Jani was posted at Dholka with an aim to increase Chudasama's prospects of winning the election. Another argument of Rathod was that although the standing instruction of the Election Commission of India is that the postal ballots are to be counted before counting of votes on EVMs, the same was not followed. In fact, the postal ballots were counted only after counting of the EVM votes and after knowing that there was a narrow margin between the two contesting candidates. THE CASE Bhupendrasinh Chudasama won the 2017 election against Ashwin Rathod. Rathod had alleged that Chudasama won the 2017 Assembly election by using unfair means and his election be declared void. The minister had won the election by a thin margin of 327 votes

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