AIADMK alleged that DMK ensured victory in rural local body elections through violence
The opposition AIADMK, which lost the rural local body elections, has alleged that the ruling DMK won the elections through unfair means and by spreading violence across the state. The party said that they had filed several complaints about the violence being perpetrated by the DMK to the state election commission, but the SEC did not take any action on them.
Former chief ministers and AIADMK coordinator and coordinator O. Panneerselvam and Edappadi K. Palaniswami alleged that there was unprecedented violence by DMK workers in several areas during the rural local body elections. He said the SEC was turned into a ‘puppet’ in the hands of the DMK.
AIADMK leaders said that when they were in power, Lok Sabha and Assembly elections were held in a single phase, but the DMK government conducted rural local body elections in two phases. Party leaders said in a statement that they had approached the Madras High Court against this.
He said the SEC had given an undertaking to the High Court that it would conduct the elections as per the directions of the court. The AIADMK alleged that despite being an autonomous body, the SEC was made a puppet in the hands of the DMK.
AIADMK leaders said they had petitioned the SEC that Bhaskar Pandian, the district collector of Ranipet, was acting at the behest of the ruling party and had requested his transfer but to no avail. The SEC had rejected the candidature of AIADMK candidates in two district panchayat wards and four panchayat union wards in Kallakuruchi district, the statement said. The leaders said that they had given a written complaint to the SEC against this but the Election Commission did not take any action.
The AIADMK said party representatives were not allowed to sit at several election booths and the media was also not allowed to report. He said he had given seven petitions to the SEC and said he would prove before the Madras High Court that the DMK’s victory was through unfair means.
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