Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary and party Virudhunagar Lok Sabha constituency candidate Vaiko, along with his party cadre, squatted on the Virudhunagar-Aruppukottai road condemning the "unruly" behaviour of a Sub-Inspector, who allegedly used "abusive" language against the party cadre on Monday. The police said that a Static Surveillance team of Aruppukottai Assembly constituency, involved in vehicle check near Periyavallikulam, intercepted the convoy of Mr. Vaiko, who was proceeding towards Aruppukottai around 11 a.m.
After Mr. Vaiko got down from his vehicle, a Special Sub-Inspector of Police asked party cadre sitting in the car following Mr. Vaiko's vehicle, to get down.
“Our cadre were angered by the abusive words used by the police officer. We are ready to cooperate with the police, but it was unwarranted on the part of the police to behave in an unruly manner’’, Mr. Vaiko told
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Finding fault with the police officer's tone and body language, Mr. Vaiko said that he and his cadre squatted on the road for a brief while to expose the behaviour of the police.
“I will be the last person to put any hindrance to the public and vehicle movement. But, it was only a token protest to highlight the police behaviour,” Mr. Vaiko said.
Revenue Divisional Officer (Aruppukottai) K. Udhaykumar and Inspector of Police S. Annaraj intervened and pacified the protestors. They promised to look into their complaint following which Mr. Vaiko's convoy left the place after a protest for over 25 minutes.
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MDMK’s former Virudhunagar MLA R. Varadarajan sought the transfer of the police officer.
The RDO said the issue had been taken up with the Collector, T.N. Hariharan. However, the Sub-Inspector denied the charges made against him, an official said.
In a similar incident reported on March 28, Mr. Vaiko, who cooperated with the police officers for a vehicle check, wondered whether the police would show the same interest in checking Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's helicopter when she went out on election campaign.
On Sunday evening, the supporters of Virudhunagar Lok Sabha Congress candidate B. Manicka Tagore objected to a flying squad checking the vehicles at Gurayur near Kalligudi during the candidate's election tour. They complained that they were being targeted by the officials. They picked a quarrel with the team head.