CHENNAI: The DMK seems to be contradicting its own treasurer M K Stalin. Two days after Stalin had said that during his campaign in Thirumangalam constituency he had given money only to a new-born baby and not to solicit votes, the DMK party on Wednesday told the Election Commission (EC) that no such incident took place during the campaign of Stalin.
“What had happened some time ago, somewhere else at some occasion unconnected with elections, with no clarity, with no details, with no specific reference, is now sought to be projected as if Stalin distributed money to the voters,” DMK’s principal secretary Arcot N Veeraswami told the EC in his 13-page reply. Veeraswami further said, “The clippings if any, available on the website of CNN-IBN is nothing to do with Thirumanagalam by-election campaign at all and the same is sought to be stage-mana g ed and dramatized.” Ques- tioning the truthfulness of the video clippings, Veeraswami said it had been sponsored by Jaya TV, adopting various gimmicks of doctoring, mixing and mismatching and programming such falsities in an attempt to connect them to the election campaign of Stalin.
Veeraswami said the DMK would take legal action against AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa and her television channels for having misled the people as well as the EC.
On the filing of a criminal case against Stalin, he said no judicial or quasi-judicial action could be taken on such hearsay evidence as clearly illustrated in the Indian Evidences Act.
MK FLAYS CEC: Meanwhile, taking a dig at Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) N Gopalaswamy’s remarks that Tamil Nadu topped the list of States in violating the model code of conduct for elections, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said that so far no CEC had levelled such a sweeping allegation in the midst of an election.
Writing for Murasoli, Karunanidhi referred to the allegation of Jayalalithaa that attempts were being made to tamper with the electronic voting machines in support of the DMK candidate in the Thirumangalam by-election.
“If Jayalalithaa’s allegations were to be true, there would be no need for the EC,” Karunanidhi added.