CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday observed that all political parties should avoid any form of violence or incitement to violence during the run-up to the Assembly elections scheduled on April 6. The court also directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to dispose of the representation of the DMK pertaining to media advertisments by the AIADMK.
The issue relates to RS Bharathi of DMK stating that political parties cannot use public funds for advertising themselves and gaining mileage for their party functionaries and leaders. The DMK sought the court to restrain the AIADMK from spending crores of public money on such advertisments.
Senior advocate P Wilson for the DMK contended that they were not called for a personal enquiry by the ECI over their complaint about such violations. On Tuesday, during the hearing, Advocate General Vijay Narayan submitted that all advertisements in the media have been now stopped and there is also the election Model Code of Conduct after the election dates were announced. The ECI, in its submission, stated that the advertisments given by the State do not attract any legal action since no violation of the circulars issued by the ECI was noticed.