Tamil Nadu has been notorious for usage of muscle and money power to sway the elections. Over time leaders of different parties have been under heat for blatantly using illegal influencing tactics on voters This year already, unaccounted cash, drugs, liquor, precious metal and freebies, of the tune of 500 Crores has been recovered from the state, purportedly meant to influence voters.
In a similar incident Election Commission has sought to cancel the polls in the Vellore parliamentary constituency of Tamil Nadu, in wake of recovery of huge amounts of unaccounted cash allegedly meant to influence voters. The Election commission had seized cash on 29 March, from the premises of DMK veteran and party treasurer Duraimurugan’s son Kathir Anand’s house. Subsequently in a second raid, based on information of illegal cash been moved from a college related to Duraimurugan’s family to a cement ware house in Vellore, in which around Rs. 11.53 crore were seized. Tamil Nadu police had filed an FIR against the Anand, and two others, Poonjolai Srinivasan, the owner of the cement warehouse and Damodaran, in connection with the raids conducted on the 1st of April . The IT department which coordinated with the Election Commission, on their request had conducted the raids had also recovered documents with ward numbers on them, which are alleged to be documentation meant for distribution of Cash.
#2019Elections update: The Election Commission has recommended the cancellation of elections in the Vellore constituency of Tamil Nadu. Almost 12 crores of cash was recovered from a warehouse, allegedly connected to senior DMK leader Durai Murugan. His son is the DMK candidate.
— tfipost.com (@tfipost) April 16, 2019
Following the sequence of events the EC has written to President Ram Nath Kovind to cancel the polls in Vellore, as EC suspected the use of money power to influence voters. Vellore is set to go for the polls on 18th of April with the rest of state, however the fate of two assembly segments that fall under Vellore parliamentary Constituency, Ambur and Gudiyattam, where by polls are to be conducted is still uncertain.
Rashtrapati Bhavan had received the recommendation on Monday and has forwarded it to the Law ministry for its legal advice, however the President has little choice but to accept EC’s Proposal hence the cancellation of the polls is imminent.
Duraimurugan’s claimed the raids to be part of a ‘conspiracy’ by leaders who could not face him in the electoral battle field. “This is not the time to hold searches, be it tax or other authorities, when we are in the midst of full-fledged election campaign,” he said however seizure of huge amounts of cash challenge Duraimurugan’s claims on solid grounds and question his ethical conduct during the Campaign.
These elections have been seeing desperate attempts from leaders trying to save their political ground, From derogatory comments on women and Hinduism to huge amounts of cash diverted from schemes meant for the underprivileged, from candidates being arrested for damaging EVM’s to candidates claiming EVM to be biased even before the results are known.