AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa on Tuesday lashed out at the Election Commission for its latest conditions.
Campaigning at Vadamadurai near Tiruvallur, Ms. Jayalalithaa said the Election Commission’s condition that the candidate not be on stage and the party leader not mention the candidate’s name and there be no photograph of the candidate had rendered the purpose of canvassing meaningless.
According to EC norms, in the event of any of the above taking place, the expenses of the entire meeting would be added to the candidate’s account. Such measures were anti-people and anti-democratic. These norms were strange and had never been in the electoral history of the country, she said.
Adding the expenses incurred on the stage, decorations, banners and chairs to the candidate’s account was acceptable, but the EC’s decision to calculate the travelling expenses of the public attending the meeting under the expenditure account of the candidate was illogical and unfair, she said.
Ms. Jayalalithaa wanted to know how it would be possible for her to restrict the number of persons attending the public meeting. Campaigning for a Lok Sabha constituency involved the electorate of six Assembly segments, which were almost equal to a district, she pointed out.
At the public meeting, the AIADMK’s Tiruvallur candidate, P. Venugopal, was neither on stage nor was his name mentioned by Ms. Jayalalithaa.
Earlier at Ranipet, Ms. Jayalalithaa said a regime change at the Centre, of which the AIADMK would be a part, was the only way to bring benefits to the State. The UPA government had betrayed the Tamils for ten years, and this election would change it.
