‘Cops pressurised venue owners not to host Rafale book launch'

While the publishers, Bharathi Puthakalayam, had initially finalised a venue in Mylapore, a spokesperson of the publishing house told DTNext that police personnel of intelligence wing in Greater Chennai Police threatened them not to host the launch.

“We then changed the venue to Kerala Samajam at Purasawalkam and printed the invitations. However, on Tuesday, the venue owners backed out claiming that policemen asked them not to host the launch as it was against the Model Code of Conduct. We then decided to host the event at our office at Teynampet,” said the spokesperson.

However, hours before the launch, a flying squad of the EC from Teynampet led by officer Ganesh visited the office and allegedly told them that the book could not be launched citing the Model Code of Conduct. When the publishers argued that the book was not connected to the elections, the flying squad seized about 150 copies from the office with the help of police personnel.

“Later, when the publishers met the Assistant Returning Officer for Thousand Lights, the Chief Election Office contacted them and asked them to return the books and not to disturb the launch,” he said.

While the book authored by S Vijayan, was launched by N Ram of the Hindu Group, the e-version of the book started circulating on WhatsApp even before the official launch.

Senior police officials were not available for comment on why the police tried to stop the book launch. Meanwhile, CPI (M) state secretary K Balakrishnan said the EC has proved that it had become a tool of the Modi government.