Madurai SP’s official car checked twice

In first such incident in the state, the official car of Superintendent of Madurai N Manivannan was searched twice on Sunday. According to police sources in Madurai, when Manivannan came out of his office to check the police protection for the election campaign meeting of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, his car was stopped by a team of election officials headed by Tahsildar, Seethalakshmi.

After it was found that there was no cash in the car, the vehicle was let off. But, once again the car was stopped by another team of election officials at Melamadai. It resulted in the second inspection. However, the car was again let off.

Sources also said that the SP extended complete cooperation to the election officials and there was no tension at the spot.

Earlier, on Saturday Manivannan instructed all the police personnel to extend cooperation to the election officials, but the first inspection happened to be the SP’s car itself.

The instruction to police personnel was based on the accusation of Opposition parties, who claimed that that the public vehicles are used by the ruling AIADMK government for transporting cash.

DMK president MK Stalin has been repeatedly raising the issue in all his election rallies that the EC officials are partial and are checking only the vehicles of Opposition parties and public but not the cars of officials and Ambulance. Stalin also accused the state government of transporting the cash for distribution to voters in ambulances and police vehicles.

He also demanded the EC to check the vehicles of ruling party men.

Meanwhile, The EC on Sunday issued an advisory to all the Chief Electoral Officers (CEOs) to act impartially in checking the vehicles.

In a press note, Vikram Batra, Director (EE), EC, said, “The Election Commission would like to strongly advise that all the enforcement actions during the election period, even when conducted ruthlessly with a view to curb this blatant electoral malpractice, should be absolutely neutral, impartial and non-discriminatory. Further, in case of suspected use of illicit money for electoral purposes, the CEO should be kept subtly informed during the period of Model Code of Conduct (MCC).”