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EC embarrassed over voters' greed

Last Updated 10 June 2012, 19:47 IST

As curtains came down on campaigns for the June 12 by-election to the Tamil Nadu Assembly from Pudukottai on Sunday evening, Election Commission (EC) officials were embarrassed by an unseemly prospect of some voters there openly demanding for money. The EC has asked ''all outsiders'' to leave the constituency immediately.

Amid charges by the Opposition, DMDK led by actor Vijayakant that ruling party’s “money power” was playing a “big role” in the Pudukottai by-election, stunning video pictures of voters of one particular ward complaining that “they have not received any money”, came as a big jolt to the EC officials.

But “all arrangements for a free and fair poll have been made,” said EC officials in Chennai.
Actor-turned-politician, Vijayakant, who fell out with the AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha before the Panchayat elections in October last year and keen to prove a point on his party’s emerging strength in the state, also charged that police had not acted upon several complaints of ‘money distribution’ by the ruling party. The EC officials, however, denied the charge saying, “the complaints were being investigated”.

 Rounding off his poll-campaign at Pudukottai on Sunday, Vijayakant and the DMDK’s Presidium chairman and former minister Panruti S Ramachandran, asked how Jayalalithaa could take credit for her government’s performance, when the common people were reeling under severe cash crunch after the hike in bus transport fares, milk prices and electricity tariff. “Every middle class household in Tamil Nadu today on an average are paying Rs 1,000 more on their electricity bills,” Ramachandran pointed out.

As the day also coincided with the CEC S Y Qureshi demitting office in Delhi on Sunday, Vijayakant took the occasion to make a plea to the EC to usher in the “right to recall” of non-performing and corrupt MLAs/MPs. “Only the voters Right to Recall can change things,” asserted Vijayakant.

However, Vijayakant, while ending his campaign at almost 5 pm, could be hauled up by the EC as he gave an open appeal to the people to “send SMS to voters to vote for DMDK” in the by-poll. EC rules strictly disallows any form of campaign 48 hours before the scheduled polling date.

Significantly, the DMK patriarch, M Karunanidhi, in Chennai, reflecting on the Pudukottai by-poll campaign, took a swipe at his arch-rival, AIADMK chief, for lampooning him during her election campaign on Saturday for having “walked out” of the contest.

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(Published 10 June 2012, 19:47 IST)

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