Chennai, Oct 16 — The Madras High Court has criticised the involvement of children in election campaigning and social media reels seeking votes for TVK chief Joseph Vijay as politically motivated, describing the practice as being in bad taste and a reflection of poor parenting.
While rejecting an election petition against Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) MLA K Sivakumar, Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy said that neither political parties nor their candidates can involve children in any election-related activity.
The court made several observations regarding allegations that children had been used for campaigning by the TVK during the recently concluded Assembly elections.
Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy observed that the entire exercise of involving children in such campaigning was distasteful.
Allowing children to participate in it reflected poor parenting. “Producing campaign reels using children was both undignified and politically motivated,” said the court.
Whether such activities should be prohibited or made grounds for setting aside an election was a broader issue that Parliament needed to consider, the court said.
Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy pointed out that the influence children have over their families, both in purchasing decisions and in their attachment to political leaders, is a subject of considerable debate worldwide.
Just as parents persuade their children, children also influence their parents and other elders at home, the court observed while allowing an application by TVK MLA K Sivakumar seeking rejection of an election petition challenging his victory from the Salem North Assembly constituency in the 2026 elections.
According to the election petition, TVK chief Joseph Vijay directly appealed to children to influence their parents and other family members to vote for the TVK and its Whistle symbol.
The petition alleged that several social media reels subsequently emerged showing children pressuring their parents and grandparents to vote for the TVK.
The court said the key question in this case is whether a political leader campaigning among children and asking them to persuade their parents to vote for him amounted to exercising undue influence.
In this regard, the court referred to the definition of “undue influence” under the Representation of the People Act and cited the Supreme Court's detailed consideration of the issue in the Shiv Kirpal Singh case.
The court observed that it was important to consider the circumstances in which the children appeared in the videos. The children did not have mobile phones of their own and could not independently create reels. Adults at home had shown them the political leader's appeal, encouraged them to perform such activities, created the reels, and promoted them.
Therefore, the conduct could not be regarded as a situation in which children alone exercised influence to the extent of overriding the decision-making freedom of adults, the court said.
At most, it could be viewed as an attempt to persuade adults to vote for a particular political party and its candidate, the court said.