New Delhi:
The Election Commission on Thursday announced August 5, 2019 as the date of polling for the Vellore Parliamentary constituency of Tamil Nadu, where elections were canceled following the seizure of massive cash haul. Over Rs 12 crore in cash were recovered from the residence of a DMK leader's associate during the raids. Following the recovery of large amount of cash, the EC had canceled the Lok Sabha election for the constituency.
Polling in Vellore was scheduled on April 18. The EC took the decision after the district police had filed a complaint against the accused, Kathir Anand, as well as two party functionaries on the basis of a report from the Income Tax department on April 10.
Anand was charged under the Representation of the People Act for giving "wrong information" in his election affidavit filed along with his nomination papers, the police said. The other two, identified as Srinivasan and Damodaran, were booked under bribery charges.
On March 30, Income Tax officials had conducted searches at the residence of Anand's father Durai Murugan over suspected use of unaccounted money for electioneering, and seized Rs. 10.50 lakh in alleged "excess" cash. Two days later, they claimed to have seized Rs 11.53 crore from a cement godown belonging to a DMK leader's associate in the same district.
Murugan, however, said that he had not concealed anything. Questioning the timing of the Income Tax department's operation, he had alleged that the raids were a "conspiracy" by certain political leaders who could not face them in the electoral arena.
(With PTI inputs)
