LS polls: Waiting for report from District Election Officer of The Nilgiris, says CEO Sahoo

CHENNAI: The Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu Satyabrata Sahoo on Friday said that the Commission has sought a report from the District Election Officer of The Nilgiris regarding alleged favoritism shown towards the DMK candidate and former union minister A Raja.

"We have yet to receive the complaint sent by the Assistant Expenditure Observer (regarding alleged favoritism towards the DMK candidate). We have sought a report from the District Election Officer in this regard based on the reports in the newspapers," Sahoo told media persons, referring to the media report that AEO P Saravanan of The Nilgiris constituency in a complaint stated that the RO and District Collector M Aruna was "harassing him" and "showing favoritism" towards the DMK candidate.

Sahoo said the officials have distributed booth slips to 4.36 crore voters in the state and they would complete the distribution of the slips to the rest of the voters by April 13. They have been making efforts to disburse voter ID cards to all the new voters and only 6,000 more cards have to be disbursed.

Sahoo added that they have established a state-level integrated center for postal balloting in Trichy. From there, the postal votes would be distributed to different districts.

On the seizure of cash, he said the Income Taxes department has seized Rs 74 crore in the state till date. "There is no restriction on ongoing projects and schemes. The existing rules permit this," he said while responding to a question on continuing the monthly financial assistance schemes.