FIR not registered in RK Nagar bribery case: Stalin
The AIADMK (Amma) Government led by Edappadi Palaniswamy is in for major trouble as leader of the Opposition MK Stalin accused the Chief Minister of telling lies to the people of the State with regard to a directive issued by the Election Commission of India to the Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu.
Speaking to reporters outside the Secretariat premises on Monday, Stalin, who is also the working president of the DMK, said that the Election Commission of India had issued a directive to the Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu on April 18, 2017 to register an FIR against the Chief Minister, AIADMK deputy general secretary TTV Dinakaran and five Ministers for electoral malpractices reported during the run up to the RK Nagar bypoll.
The directive from the ECI was a fallout of the decision to rescind the April 12, 2017 bypoll from RK Nagar Assembly Constituency following reports of large scale money distribution to induce/bribe voters and to influence the outcome of the election.
According to information gathered by a Chennai based lawyer from the ECI under the Right to Information Act, the Constitutional Body had sent a directive to the CEO and the Returning Officer of the Constituency on April 18 asking them to file an FIR under 171(B) of the IPC for alleged large scale money distribution to bribe the voters. Neither the CEO nor the RO has taken any action and were shielding the perpetrators of the offence, charged Stalin.
The DMK leader tried in vain to raise the issue in the Assembly on Monday. But Speaker P Dhanapal did not allow him to do so which led the DMK to walkout from the House.
Chief Minister later told the House that a police case has been registered in connection with the alleged bribing of voters of the RK Nagar Constituency. But while speaking to reporters late Sunday evening at Tiruchirappalli, he said that he had no information about the ECI directive. “I heard it from some mediapersons only,” Palaniswamy said.
The RK Nagar byelection caused by the demise of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa turned out to be a major embarrassment for the ruling AIADMK (Amma). Dinakaran, deputy general secretary of the party, who is the nephew of the jailed party general secretary VK Sasikala, was the candidate of the Amma faction while veteran Madhusoodanan, an old MGR loyalist was fielded by the Panneerselvam faction. The going turned out to be a tough task for Dinakaran who trailed throughout the campaign which forced the party to resort to unethical means in the election. Things came to a flashpoint when sleuths from the department of Income Tax raided the residences and business premises of Vijaya Bhaskar, the Health Minister in Palaniswamy’s Cabinet and seized “unaccounted cash” of Rs 5 crore and many incriminating documents. A receipt released to some section of the media in Chennai by some of the officials in the Income Tax department spoke of Rs 80 crore distributed in RK Nagar Constituency through Ministers, including the Chief Minister. The ECI rescinded the bypoll immediately after the IT raids.
late Monday, Stalin in a statement asked the chief secretary, CEO and RO to comply with the ECI directive and file cases against the officials and Ministers concerned who has been named by the EC.