Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Praveen Kumar has sought more information from Cuddalore Collector and District Election Officer Kirlosh Kumar on the “cash for votes” issue involving Commercial Taxes and Registration Minister M.C. Sampath.
On receiving the Election Commission’s direction on the alleged incident of cash distribution by the Minister, Mr Kirlosh Kumar initiated a probe into the matter and asked a tahsildar to carry out the probe.
On Wednesday evening, the Collector submitted his report to the CEO.
The controversy has arisen following the submission of a complaint by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to the CEO that Mr Sampath, also All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s Cuddalore (East) district secretary, distributed cash to some voters on Friday last during his campaign in the Cuddalore Lok Sabha constituency.
Mask matter As regards another complaint of a police official distributing masks displaying the visual of the face of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in Kallakurichi to people on Sunday last, Mr Praveen Kumar said the matter had been referred to the Director General of Police for his response.
On applications submitted by political parties for clearance of advertisements, the CEO replied that the DMK and the AIADMK were the only two parties to have given the applications, both of which had been cleared.
As for the status on cases filed by the authorities for defacement of public and private properties, A. Karthik, Special CEO, said that out of 54,926 complaints, action had been conclusively taken in respect of 52,258 instances.
Till Monday, cash of Rs. 10.25 crore and non-cash items, valued at about Rs. 1.1 crore, had been seized.
For the entire State, 1,410 flying squads were in place, he added.
Polling hours An official release from the CEO said that after taking into account various factors and with a view to facilitating voters, the Election Commission decided to have polling hours between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.
This would be applicable for the Lok Sabha elections and the Alandur by-poll.
