PMK's candidates urge postponement of Tamil Nadu polls

All the PMK candidates including its chief ministerial candidate Anbumani Ramadoss urged the Election Commission to postpone Monday's assembly polls temporarily due to large-scale bribing of voters.

"PMK's 229 candidates have petitioned the Election Commission to postpone the elections. The petition is being emailed to the Commission by the candidates individually," PMK leader and former MP K.Dhanaraju told IANS on Sunday.

According to PMK, this perhaps for the first time in the Indian electoral history, all the candidates from political party is demanded postponement of the election.

"We could have asked for postponement two days back. We thought the money distribution will not be on a large scale. Today all the check-posts for checking the vehicles for unaccounted money were unmanned. There were free flow of money from the parties to the voters," Dhanaraju claimed.

Meanwhile in a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, Ramadoss said: "Since there is huge money distribution across all the 234 constituencies in Tamil Nadu, we request you to temporarily postpone the elections in all the constituencies.

"The nomination of all the AIADMK and DMK candidates who have indulged in distribution of money should be nullified," he added.

Ramadoss also urged the poll body to depute officers from other states to conduct the election in a free and fair manner with the help of paramilitary forces.

According to Ramadoss, his party candidates have confiscated the money distributed by DMK and AIADMK candidates and handed them over to Election Commission officers.

"Instead of filing a complaint and taking necessary action against the offender (AIADMK and DMK candidates), a case has been filed against the PMK candidate who complained," Ramadoss said in his letter.

The PMK had nominated its candidates for all the 234 constituencies in Tamil Nadu.

However the nominations of the two candidates were rejected while three others switched sides (two joined AIADMK and one joined DMK).

On Saturday, the Election Commission postponed balloting to May 23 in Aravakurichi constituency in Karur district as it was satisfied that the electoral process had been vitiated due to bribery by political parties.

--IANS

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