Raids staged, managed by BJP: DMK candidate from Vellore writes to EC

New Delhi: After polls in Tamil Nadu's Vellore Lok Sabha constituency were deferred, DMK candidate Kathir Anand wrote a letter to the Election Commission of India (ECI) alleging that the election watchdog is toeing in line with the BJP to help their candidate.

In his letter to poll body, Anand stated, "The raids were staged and managed by the ruling party to get a bogus report from the IT department, which acted as judge, jury and executioner. Based on this bogus report, the ECI has cancelled elections projecting as if the money seized was from me and that the said money was stored for distribution to the voters."

The DMK candidate accused I-T department of detaining him illegally to help BJP-AIADMK alliance candidate.

"There was no warrant during the entry and I was illegally detained for about three days during the search by I-T department preventing me from campaigning... to help BJP-AIADMK combine candidate AC Shanmugam and also to damage the prospects of my victory," Anand stated.

On Tuesday, President Ram Nath Kovind accepted the recommendation by the Election Commission and cancelled voting in Vellore Lok Sabha constituency, in the wake of seizures of large amounts of unaccounted cash from the state.

The DMK leader also said that AIADMK's candidate from the constituency AC Shanmugam is engaged in large scale cash distribution.

"Further, despite our several complaints that the BJP-AIADMK alliance is engaged in large scale cash distribution by its candidate AC Shunmugam and his agents and worker, no action whatsoever has been taken against him."

Anand alleged the raids of the income tax (I-T) department at his mother’s residence and a college of which he was a managing trustee were illegal and stage-managed by the ruling BJP-AIADMK parties.

"The raids are highly motivated, preplanned to enable the Department to provide a false, misleading report to Election Commission to damage my election prospects and to stop the elections in the 8-Vellore Parliamentary constituency," he stated.

Anand has urged the Commission to let elections take place in Vellore constituency and said if the poll body poll fails to do this he will be constrained to initiate action before the constitutional court.

Vellore was scheduled to go to polls on April 18 along with 38 other Parliamentary constituencies in Tamil Nadu.