All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam candidate ‘Amman’ K. Arjunan’s nomination to contest the Coimbatore South Assembly seat should be rejected as he suppressed information in the affidavit, alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, and Communist Party of India (Marxist).
C. Padmanabhan (CPI-M), Mayura S. Jayakumar (Congress), and representatives from the BJP submitted petitions to the Returning Officer P. Gandhimathi asking Mr. Arjunan’s nomination to be rejected.
They said that Mr. Arjunan had not revealed the details of criminal cases against him.
The Selvapuram Police had registered a case, 1107/2012 and the City Crime Branch (43/2015) too had registered a case against him.
One of the two was based on court direction.
Mr. Padmanabhan said that when he and his supporters presented the facts to the Returning Officer, she said that those were not the grounds for rejection.
And, when they sought action under The Representation of People Act, she merely received the petition.
BJP representatives said that they wanted the Returning Officer to lodge a complaint against Mr. Arjunan according to the provisions of the Act but there was no assurance from her. They also said that Mr. Arjunan had not even shared details of his presence in social networking sites.
Mr. Jayakumar said that the AIADMK candidate suppressing information related to cases pending against him was a shameful act.
That the Returning Officer had not rejected the nomination was undemocratic, he said and added that he would take legal recourse to the problem.
The Returning Officer, Ms. Gandhimathi, said that she had accepted Mr. Arjunan’s nomination based on the guidelines given by the Election Commission of India.
Mr. Arjunan said that no case was pending against him. The High Court had not even quashed cases against him. All that mudslinging was born out of fear that he would win the election.
