Did leaders of the AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) headed by former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam know beforehand that the Election Commission would scrap the byelection for the Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar Assembly constituency in April? If one were to go by a video tape, released as part of an alleged sting operation by a private television channel, then it would appear so.
In the video footage, which Moon TV claimed was recorded secretly on April 6, AIADMK (PTA) MLA S.S. Saravanan is heard bragging that Mr. Panneerselvam was backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party ruling at the Centre, and that the byelection in R K Nagar will certainly be cancelled. [The MLA has since claimed that the voice was not his.]
Four days later on April 10, the Election Commission had rescinded the byelection on grounds of large-scale bribery of voters, allegedly by the ruling AIADMK (Amma), which had fielded its deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran in the constituency, last represented by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
‘Irregularities recorded’
In the video, Mr. Saravanan claims that members of the Panneerselvam faction are confident that the bypoll would be called off. After claiming that they have the full backing of the BJP, he says, “We know that the bypoll will be cancelled.”
He can be further heard saying, “People will only vote for Madhusudhanan (the AIADMK-PTA candidate). Just because that group (Dhinakaran) distributes money and takes a promise (from voters), the people won’t vote for them. They will change their decision at the ballot box. We are able to withstand all this because of the BJP’s support. We were told 10-15 days ago that elections will be stopped because all these (irregularities) are being recorded.”
Further speaking about money being distributed before the R.K. Nagar bypoll, he claimed that Mr. Dhinakaran’s faction distributed money using police’s support. “Yet people won’t vote. O. Panneerselvam has already said that he will not distribute money. In fact, he doesn’t have the personnel to distribute money on that scale,” said Mr. Saravanan. He added, “We don’t have workers at the lower levels to distribute money.”
