Stating that he would seek votes on a symbol allotted to him, MDMK principal secretary and DMK alliance candidate for Tiruchi constituency Durai Vaiko on Wednesday said the BJP was ‘remote-controlling’ the Election Commission of India (ECI) and other Central agencies to freeze the Opposition parties in all possible ways.
Reacting to ECI’s refusal to allot ‘top’ symbol to the MDMK, Mr. Durai Vaiko said the BJP was using the Department of Income Tax and the Enforcement Directorate to freeze the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party and others. As far as Tamil Nadu was concerned, ECI was following discriminative approach over allotting symbols to the Opposition parties. The MDMK, the VCK and the NTK were kept in dark over allotting their traditional symbols.
Though the MDMK had taken up the issue with ECI well in advance, it followed the approach of delaying tactics, Mr. Durai Vaiko said and added that his party could go for appeal. However, it had decided to accept the symbol, which was to be allotted to him by election officials during scrutiny of nomination.
He said he had identified some symbols and was confident that the DMK alliance parties and their cadre could popularise the symbol within no time in the constituency. “It is an era of social media. We can popularise the symbol quickly among the voters. It will not be an issue.”
To a question, Mr. Durai Vaiko said the INDIA bloc was strong. It would unseat the BJP from power. It could not come back to power again at the Centre.
