The Hindu : Parties charge largescale bogus voting

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 01, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Parties charge largescale bogus voting

By Saptarshi Bhattacharya

CHENNAI May 31. The byelection in the Saidapet Assembly constituency was today marred by charges of largescale bogus voting and use of muscle power by political parties. It was also charged that police used force against party workers.

What began as a peaceful process in the morning, it took an ugly turn by afternoon when large mobilisation of partymen at polling booths gave rise to allegations of bogus voting. By evening, the exercise was plunged into disarray, with the ruling party members laying siege to most booths.

The first signs of trouble arose at a polling station in Fathima School off Alandur Road at around 10 a.m. where, the DMK candidate, M.Subramaniam, alleged that the ruling party members were threatening the Opposition polling agents at knife points to leave the booths.

The intervention of the Police Commissioner, K.Vijay Kumar, defused the tension for a while. The Alandur Road was choked for sometime as the DMK volunteers led by Mr. Subramaniam reported their complaints to the Commissioner.

Almost simultaneously, the MDMK candidate, P.Subramani, accompanied by a group of party volunteers, tried to barge into Saraswathi Elementary School on Jayaram Street. He alleged that the AIADMK volunteers had cast votes of the residents who turned out in the morning.

``It has been happening with the connivance of the police'', he charged. But police officials soon rushed to the spot and tried to pacify the candidates. Even while the altercations continued between the MDMK candidate and the police officials, a group of MDMK volunteers smashed the window pane of a vehicle carrying ruling party members.

The Corporation Girls High School on Jones Road West where four polling booths (171 to 174) were located, was tense right from the morning with a huge posse of police maintaining vigil. Polling was normal till afternoon when the DMK polling agents in the booths were allegedly beaten up by the AIADMK men and forced out.

When the DMK volunteers and polling agents engaged in a dharna outside the school, the police personnel led by Deputy Commissioner (T.Nagar), K.P.Shanmugarajeswaran, resorted to a lathicharge to disperse them. ``The AIADMK polling agents offered us a bribe of Rs 10,000 each to move out of the school. When we turned it down, we were beaten up and thrown outside'', said T.Damodaran, the DMK agent for booth 172.

Police used force on several occasions on Jones Road junction to control the crowd. Several AIADMK cadres were seen moving around with bunches of ration cards, distributing them freely to ``prospective voters''.

At around 3 p.m., a section of AIADMK polling agents were handing out voter slips to a group of youth on Burkit Road near Sri Ramakrishna Mission Sarada Vidyalaya Model Higher Secondary School for Girls. When a group numbering about 50 tried to enter the school, they were lathicharged. But later, smaller groups of people were seen gaining entry to the polling booths with the voter slips.

A traffic constable manning the Burkit Road junction noted that most of the cadres were in an inebriated state and were abusing the policemen, at times even threatening them with ``dire consequences'' if they were stopped.

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