Denying that daily remuneration for ex-servicemen roped in for election duty had been cut by the State government, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said on Wednesday that there was an attempt to mislead the public on voting day by such propaganda.
In a statement here, Mr. Karunanidhi said that these former Army personnel were paid Rs.300 a day besides Rs.60 as food allowance in the last election. The Election Commission sought to reduce this to a total of Rs.275 a day.
“State government officials informed the EC that such a step will adversely affect these ex-servicemen. Following this, they are now being paid Rs.300 a day plus Rs.60 as food allowance, as in the past.”
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Earlier, AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa alleged that the State Chief Secretary had refused to pay the daily allowance to security personnel on election duty on the ground that “they were idling away their time and doing nothing useful.”
She told reporters after at Stella Maris College after casting her vote: “The latest information says that under instruction from Mr. Karunanidhi, the Chief Secretary has refused to pay the daily allowance of Rs.300 per head per day.” Upset by this, the security personnel had threatened to go on strike. If that happened there would be severe shortage of manpower to maintain security around polling booths. “This will lead to engineered incidents and breakdown of law and order.”
She said added that DMK workers would scare away genuine voters and cast bogus votes. The Election Commission should take cognisance of this, Ms. Jayalalithaa said.
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