The annual Mankani festival in Krishnagiri looks to turn sour over the allegations of an Erode man losing a winning bid after being scuffled out of the race on the last day of a closed tender at the Collectorate by the DMK’s top district functionaries here. With the allegations and some video evidence, the district administration and the ruling party’s name is also on the line, as admitted by an official of the district administration in a voice recording that has come out in its wake.
Of a total of 8 items opened for tender, Rajesh Kumar from Erode was poised to drop in his tender application in the closed tender box for three items - amusement, shops (80 in number) and food at Mankani festival. “June 3 was the last day for tender applications with 3 pm deadline. I reached the Collectorate at 2.40 p.m, and when I reached upstairs it was 2.45 p.m. I was headed to drop the application, when DMK men seated on the visitor’s gallery overlooking the tender box stopped me and asked me to go to the next room to meet someone called Nawab(DMK’s town secretary and spouse of union chairperson Farida Nawab). Nawab asked where I had come from, snatched my application and dropped it on the table before starting to abuse for coming to apply being an outsider,” he alleges. “I snatched back the application from the table and walked out to the bid box. By then, the DMK men surrounded the box scuffling and scuttling us from dropping the application,” he says.
According to Rajesh Kumar, he immediately took up the matter with District Revenue Officer (DRO) Rajeshwari, who reprimanded him for coming at the last minute and giving trouble to the officials. “But, the DRO did nothing. I was just waiting for something to happen. When the scuffle happened, everybody was there. Just some time shortly before that, a similar scuffle had happened and police had been summoned. In the confusion that had ensued, many people had dropped their applications into the box, according to one of the tenderers there,” claims Mr. Kumar. “If applications are filed before hand, the applications can go missing. So, we waited till the last minute for filling.”
The series of videos shared by Rajesh Kumar has detailed a time stamp of 2.56 p.m to 3 p.m. The videos also show several police men bearing witness to the scuffle without taking action.
In a video with The Hindu, the DMK’s district secretary and former MLA T.Senguttuvan is seen asking Rajesh Kumar “if people from Erode would take tenders across Tamil Nadu. It has been a dry ten years for the partymen. Shouldn’t the partymen of this district get something in return,” Mr.Senguttuvan is heard saying in the video.
When contacted, District Collector V. Jayachandra Bhanu Reddy claimed there was no truth in the allegation as 43 tenders were filed. “There is no camera evidence of the person arriving before 3 p.m. The tender box was opened at 4 p.m. He met me at 5 p.m. with his complaint. Anyone can claim that their bid was higher after the bid was opened,” says the Collector.
But, there were no cameras at the hall where the closed tender box was placed on the floor. “That a closed tender box was placed outside without a camera and that too on the floor is not in my hands,” says Rajesh Kumar.
Rajesh Kumar’s application had quoted Rs.24 lakhs, which was 5 lakhs higher than the winning bid of Rs.19 lakhs. However, according to Collector, there was no fiscal imprudence since the revenue last year was mere Rs.56 lakhs, but this year it has doubled for the festival. But the revenues could have been more, says Rajesh Kumar.
On Sunday, Gururajan, Superintendent at the office of PA(Agriculture) to Collector had called Rajesh Kumar, trying to ‘sort out’ the issue. In the audio recording of the phone call, Mr.Gururajan identified himself as Collector’s PC, and cites the district secretary of the DMK and Farida Nawab, Union Chairperson and seeks out a compromise lest the issue ruined the ‘name of the administration, the ruling party and the government’. The government official states that the Collector and the DRO had asked him to reach and sort out the issue ‘amicably’. He offers Rajesh Kumar a truce, where he could take the bid at the same price of Rs.19 lakhs, 5 lakhs lesser than Ramesh Kumar’s unfiled bid application.
When the video recording with The Hindu was shared with the Collector, he said a departmental inquiry would be initiated into the phone call as it was unauthorised. Mr. Rajesh Kumar said he would move the Madras High Court for a stay on the tender process.
