However, Satish, who is an executive with a private bank, opposed the idea. He also questioned why he was not invited for the meeting. Besides, Mr. Ramasubbu had filed his nomination for the post of panchayat president on Wednesday afternoon. He should have sought the support of the community before he filed his nomination and not after, he argued.
The argument turned into a quarrel and eventually supporters of Mr. Ramasubbu assaulted Satish, who lost consciousness. He was taken to a government hospital in Sivakasi, where he was declared brought dead. His body was handed over to family members after a post-mortem.
Satish’s cousin, M. Subburam, said that he planned to contest the election to the post of Kottaipatti panchayat president. “My father was the president in 2001-2006. Since these people knew that I was going to contest the election, they organised the community meeting with a section of their supporters to pre-empt my role in the polls,” Mr. Subburam, a functionary in the Virudhunagar West District unit of the Congress alleged.
Virudhunagar district secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), K. Arjunan, condemned the murder, terming it an atrocity unleashed by influential people. “This incident is also similar to the incidents of auctioning of posts of local body representatives in some parts of the State,” he said.
“The meeting was not held in a proper way and it denied an equal opportunity to all villagers. It was against the spirit of democracy,” he added. He also wondered how the meeting was allowed after 10 p.m. when the model code of conduct was in force.
Virudhunagar Collector R. Kannan said that it was a quarrel between two groups that had led to the murder. “There seems to be no truth in the complaint that it was an attempt to auction the post. Police have been deployed and the situation is under control,” he said.
