A heated argument broke out between HR&CE Minister P.K. Sekarbabu of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and former Minister D. Jayakumar of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and their party cadre on Monday over the order of filing nominations for the Lok Sabha election at the office of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) Regional Deputy Commissioner Officer (North).
Returning Officer (RO) and Regional Deputy Commissioner (North) Katta Ravi Teja accepted the nomination of Jeyanthi Kalanidhi, who is the wife of Chennai North DMK MP Kalaidhi Veeraswamy.
Notably, Mr. Sekarbabu was the AIADMK’s Chennai North district secretary until 2011, when he was removed from the post. He joined the DMK after this.
According to police personnel stationed at the office, earlier in the day, a member of the DMK had obtained a token in their name that was numbered ‘two’ for filing nomination at the entrance of the office. The personnel said: “Following this, the party officials received token ‘five’ in the name of Ms. Kalanidhi. Then, AIADMK members, led by Mr. Jayakumar, obtained token ‘seven’ for their candidate, Royapuram R. Mano aka R. Manoharan. After this, the DMK cadre took token ‘eight’ for their candidate Mr. Veeraswamy.”
A war of words broke out when Mr. Sekarbabu, accompanied by Mayor R. Priya and several party cadre, barged into the RO’s office with tokens ‘two’ and ‘five’, claiming they had arrived first, and hence, should be allowed to file the nomination, sources said. Meanwhile, AIADMK members said this would not be applicable “as DMK members entered first with a benami token”.
Mr. Teja told Mr. Sekarbabu that, as per the Model Code of Conduct (MCC), since AIADMK’s token number precedes that of Mr. Veeraswamy, the DMK has to file their nomination after Mr. Manoharan’s has been received. Refuting this, the Minister insisted that they had arrived first.
After negotiations, which lasted nearly one and a half hours, the nomination of Ms. Kalanidhi was filed first, followed by the AIADMK’s R. Manoharan and then DMK’s Mr. Veeraswamy. Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Paul Kanakaraj and party members protested by raising slogans against the Dravidian parties, claiming that they were not allowed to file their nomination. Their token number was ‘nine’.
Traffic and MCC violations
According to the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP), diversions were created at the T-Junction at the end of Chidambaram 7th Street, Basin Bridge, and Chidambaram Nagar as cadre of several political parties gathered at the spot.
Hundreds gathered near the gate with flags without permission, which is a violation of the MCC, the personnel added. Over 150 police personnel were deployed to control the crowd.
Senior officials at the RO’s office stated that the MCC violations, including the number of people present while nominations were to be filed, the number and nature of vehicles they arrived in, flag staffs, number of cadre that arrived at the gate etc., will be checked with the police and through CCTV camera footage, and action will be taken, if violations are found.
