Arappor seeks cancellation of Erode East by-poll over bribing of voters

CHENNAI: Arappor Iyakkam, an organisation working towards Transparency and Accountability in Governance, on Saturday submitted a petition to the Chief Electoral Officer seeking the EC to rescind the Erode East bypoll due to bribing of voters and undue influence of money power.

Jayaram Venkatesan, the Convenor of the NGO, raised a series of allegations against both the ruling DMK-led alliance and AIADMK, including the use of money to influence voters in the constituency.

"We are filing this complaint seeking the EC to rescind the bypoll of Erode East Constituency that is due to happen on 27th February, 2023 due to the massive money power influence happening in the constituency amounting to bribery of the voters to influence the Election," he said in the complaint.

Over the last few days, he alleged that the Erode East by-election has seen a new form of bribery where hundreds of voters are brought to camp in one place to sit from morning to evening and each of them are paid Rs 500 per day to support Congress candidate. He pointed to another incident on February 22 where an ex-AIADMK councillor attacked a news channel reporter covering distribution of money to voters.

"Apart from this there are several reports that many gift items such as cooker, anklet, sarees etc are being distributed in the constituency to influence voters by both major parties such as Congress and AIADMK," he said, adding that the top leaderships of the parties cannot feign ignorance about such illegal activities by their candidates and cadres.

"It has become very clear that the undue influence of money power used by the major political parties has made a mockery of democracy and there is no possibility of a free and fair election. We request the Election Commission to use its powers under Article 324 of the Constitution and all other powers enabling it in this behalf to rescind the Commission's Notification of Erode by-election," he demanded.