A consignment of school bags addressed to the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Education Services Corporation, Thanjavur, was seized and kept under lock and key at a school in Thanjavur on Thursday.
The Corporation had placed an order worth ₹47.50 lakh with a bag manufacturing unit at Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh towards supply of 31,000 school bags for distribution to the government school students in Thanjavur district.
The consignment, which commenced its journey towards Thanjavur on February 22 reached the town on Thursday morning. The lorry driver parked the container lorry on the Court Road as the textbook corporation office in the old Collectorate campus was closed when the vehicle arrived at Thanjavur.
On seeing the container lorry with Rajasthan registration number and Hindi-speaking driver and cleaner standing near it, Opposition party cadres especially from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam grew suspicious and alerted the Election Flying Squad.
Immediately, a Flying Squad arrived and ordered the driver and cleaner to open the container. A search revealed that the school bags had photos of late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami embossed on them. The DMK cadres alleged that the consignment might be ordered by the ruling party to lure voters.
As the DMK cadres remained firm even after the officials clarified that the consignment was intended for distribution to government school students under the ongoing ‘priceless text book’ distribution scheme. The Flying Squad ‘seized’ the consignment and kept it under lock and key at a room in the Corporation School at Rajappa Nagar in Thanjavur, sources said.
