India Today: Tamil Nadu: Monday, June 19, 2017.
The Election
Commission today ordered FIRs against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami,
AIADMK (Amma) leaders TTV Dinakaran, Vijayabhaskar and others in RK Nagar
bypoll bribery case.
The poll
panel's decision to register cases against the AIADMK leaders including CM
Palaniswami follows a Right to Information petition seeking to know what action
was taken by the Election Commission in the bribery case.
The Election
Commission had countermanded on April 9 the RK Nagar bypoll in Tamil Nadu
scheduled for April 12 following allegations that the voters were being bribed
by political parties.
INCOME TAX
RAID PROVIDES CLUE
Based on the
documents seized during the Income Tax Department's raids on Tamil Nadu Health
Minister C Vijayabaskar's properties in Chennai in early April, the Central
Board of Direct Taxes had submitted a report to the Election Commission saying
that around Rs 90 crore were set aside by the AIADMK to be distributed among
the voters.
AIADMK's
jailed general secretary VK Sasikala's nephew TTV Dinakaran was contesting from
RK Nagar Assembly constituency.
The bypoll was
necessitated by the death of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who
represented the constituency.
THE OTHER
BRIBERY CASE
In another
case of bribery, Dinakaran was arrested on April 26. Dinakaran was accused of
trying to bribe Election Commission officials to get AIADMK's poll symbol - Two
Leaves - for the Amma faction of the party.
Dinakaran was
accused of giving money to middleman Sukesh Chandrasekar, who had been arrested
on April 16. The Tees Hazari court of Delhi granted bail to TTV Dinakaran on
June 5 in this case.
On June 14,
the Delhi High Court dismissed the bail plea of Sukesh Chandrashekar. Justice S
Muralidhar turned down Chandrashekar's bail application on the ground that the
police had seized a fake Rajya Sabha member ID card from his possession which
was a "serious threat on Parliament's security".
The EC had
frozen the AIADMK's symbol after the two factions - one led by Dhinakaran's
aunt Sasikala and the other by former chief minister O Panneerselvam - staked a
claim to it.
Dhinakaran is
facing the charge of arranging the money from undisclosed sources and getting
it transferred from Chennai to Delhi through illegal channels.