Bombay High Court at Kolhapur upholds Narayan Rane's Lok Sabha election and rejects the petition against it as vague

9 October 2026

Justice Shailesh Brahme, sitting as a single judge at the Kolhapur seat of the Bombay High Court, has rejected the election petition filed by Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) leader Vinayak Raut and upheld Narayan Rane's election to the 18th Lok Sabha from the Sindhudurg constituency.
Rane was declared elected with 4,48,514 votes; Raut polled 4,00,656.
The petition said Rane's campaigners breached the Model Code of Conduct, and invoked Section 126 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which bars public speeches during the Code period.
Justice Brahme examined paragraphs 5(l) to 5(n) of the petition and the annexed documents.
He held that the claim in paragraph 5(l) about campaigning on 6 May 2024 was very vague and lacked material particulars, specifying neither time nor place nor the identity of those campaigning.
The news reports relied on were not sufficient to corroborate the claim.
Paragraph 5(m), based on a complaint dated 16 May 2024, did not sufficiently identify the person, the amount, the time or the place.
The Court held that electronic evidence cannot substitute material pleadings in an election petition, and that the petitioners had not provided transcriptions.