Amidst the din from Parliament to courts as the government and Opposition fight it out over alleged electoral discrepancies, Mohit Kumar’s small achievement raised barely a ripple.
On Thursday, the 27-year-old officially took oath as the sarpanch of Buana Lakhu village in Panipat, after a long legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court. A rare recount of EVMs held on the premises of the apex court finally led to the overturning of the 2022 result, as per which Kumar had lost to his rival Kuldeep Singh.
“I fought from district courts to the Supreme Court. Villagers and others advised me to give up, saying ‘nothing is going to happen’,” Kumar told The Indian Express.
On why he persisted, Kumar, a graduate and the elder of two brothers, whose family owns a modest three acres of land, says: “I had full faith in the judiciary, and this remains intact after the final judgment.”
Haryana held panchayat elections on November 2, 2022. For the post of sarpanch of Buana Lakhu, there were seven candidates. Voting was conducted across six booths.
Singh was declared the winner by a margin of 313 votes, with authorities recording 1,117 votes for him and 804 for Kumar, out of the 3,767 votes cast.
Kumar challenged the result, alleging that the presiding officer of Booth No. 69 had mistakenly recorded his votes under Singh’s name, and vice-a-versa.
The EVMs and election records were subsequently moved to Panipat for recounting the same day. And, within hours, Kumar was declared the winner by a margin of 51 votes.
However, Singh went to the Punjab and Haryana High Court against this, and, in March 2024, it set aside Kumar’s election.
Kumar responded by approaching the Additional Civil Judge-cum-Election Tribunal (Panipat). In April 2025, it ordered a recount of the EVMs from Booth No. 69. Singh challenged this order, and got the High Court to set it aside.
The matter eventually reached the Supreme Court. On July 31 this year, it ordered a full recount, of all the booths. The court stated: “… taking into consideration the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, the Deputy Commissioner and the District Election Officer, Panipat, Haryana (Varinder Dahiya), is directed to produce all the EVMs before the Registrar of this Court, to be nominated by the Secretary General, at 10 am on 06.08.2025. The nominated Registrar shall recount the votes, not only of the disputed booth but of all the booths. The recounting shall be duly video-graphed.”
Following the recount, held on the Supreme Court premises, Kumar was held to have secured 1,051 votes, against Singh’s 1,000.
On August 11, the Supreme Court declared Kumar the winner. Two days later, in compliance with the Court’s order, Dahiya issued a notification confirming Kumar as the elected sarpanch of Buana Lakhu.
Dahiya told The Indian Express that a show-cause notice would be issued now to the presiding officer concerned, seeking an explanation for the discrepancy.
However, a senior official said the case was the result of an inadvertent human error, and that it had been actually corrected via recounting, with Kumar declared the winner the same evening in November 2022. The matter got stuck due to the fact that Singh went to court.
Dhanpat Singh, who served as the State Election Commissioner when the 2022 panchayat polls were held and is now retired, said: “The winning certificate was issued to Kuldeep Singh as a result of the mistake. When the matter came to my knowledge, I asked the officers to resolve it. They said they would recall the winning certificate from Kuldeep Singh.”
However, he said: “We learned that Kuldeep Singh had declared his victory in the village, distributed laddoos, and refused to return the certificate. On our part, we did not issue the notification for his election and instructed the Deputy Commissioner not to hand over the sarpanch charge to him. The official notification for his election was issued only after the orders of the High Court in 2024.”
A former school teacher of Buana Lakhu, Ved Vashisth, said that the Supreme Court’s order was heartening. “This matter shows that consistent efforts and awareness can even change election results in the country.”
However, Anand Malik, a BJP worker of the village, said too much should not be read into it. “There was no fault on the part of EVMs in this case, as the candidates secured the same number of votes as were declared after the recounting on the same day.”
Singh, dislodged as sarpanch, is not calling it quits yet. “We have not decided our next step,” he says.
Kumar, on the other hand, knows exactly what he is going to do now. “I will focus on strengthening the education, health and sports facilities in my village. Sanitation would be my priority, apart from launching an anti-drug campaign.”