DMK candidate N. Marudu Ganesh, who lost the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar bypoll to dissident AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran, has made a representation to the Election Commission (EC), accusing Mr. Dhinakaran of having spent well beyond the expenditure limit set by the poll body during the campaign.
He has also urged the officials to verify whether the accounts that Mr. Dhinakaran had submitted match with that of the shadow expenditure monitoring team.
In his representation, addressed to three electoral expenditure observers and the District Electoral Officer, Mr. Ganesh alleged that Mr. Dhinakaran had “incurred huge expenditure beyond the permitted level” and further claimed that the independent candidate had “suppressed” some of his expenditure.
Claiming that Mr. Dhinakaran conducted rallies with over 300 persons on a daily basis during his campaign in the constituency in the run-up to the bypoll, Mr. Ganesh also alleged that pressure cookers (Mr. Dhinakaran’s symbol for the bypoll) were given away to the voters. He went on to cite media reports about the generation of dubious invoices when officials seized a large number of cookers on December 12 last year.
“I request you to verify whether the monitoring mechanism provided by the Election Commission of India was strictly complied with by the officials during the period of the election campaign by Mr. Dhinakaran, and whether his actual expenditure was recorded by the shadow observation team for comparison with the accounts submitted by Mr. Dhinakaran,” Mr. Ganesh said in his representation.
He also urged the Commission to consider the objections and submit necessary report to the ECI recommending to disqualify Mr. Dhinakaran.
Comment ‘misconstrued’
Meanwhile former MLA M. Rajasekaran, a supporter of dissident AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dhinakaran, on Friday said his comments on the R.K. Nagar bypoll at a party workers meeting at Musiri on Thursday had been misconstrued.
While a section of media reported that he had claimed that the tactics of distributing ₹20 as tokens had “clicked” in the bypoll, Mr. Rajasekaran claimed he had said that when voters rejected those who gave ₹6,000, would they cast their vote in favour of one who allegedly gave just ₹20.
