CHENNAI : Just as political parties in Tamil Nadu are keeping their fingers crossed after a month-long campaign, the voters of the State are going to register their mandate today (Thursday) for the Lok Sabha elections – which are crucial for the national parties and the by-elections to the Assembly constituencies - which are crucial for the ruling AIADMK and principal opposition DMK.   

The 40 Lok Sabha seats played a key role in the formation of government at the Centre many times in the past and this time as well it may become so, given the varied election predictions across the country. Further, the results of by-elections to the 22 Assembly constituencies are crucial for the survival of the government headed by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami who is surviving on a wafer thin majority. But DMK president MK Stalin is of the firm hope that the election results would spell the end of the State government.

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Meanwhile, Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo appealed to the voters to turn out in large numbers to discharge their democratic duty without fail. He said though the scorching sun could be a disadvantage, the EC has made all arrangements for smooth polling. He said if the voters face any difficulty, they can call toll-free number 1950 to lodge a complaint. This facility is available round the clock.  

When asked about the charge of the opposition parties that the Election Commission was acting in a partisan manner by conducting raids only at the places of candidates of opposition parties, the CEO stoutly denied the chargeand said: “The commission is acting on all complaints. So far, we have filed over 4,400 FIRs on various complaints.  A few days ago, they conducted searches at the MLAs hostel too, on a complaint. But the squads could not find anything. Similar was the case with the raids on DMK candidate Kanimozhi’s house.”

On the searches made in Andipatti on Tuesday night, the CEO said the district officials had sent a preliminary report. Since the investigation was still going on, he was awaiting a detailed report on the same.   As far as the seizure of unaccounted money and material was concerned, the CEO said till April 16, Rs 208.27 crore of unaccounted money had been seized. In addition, gold and silver worth Rs 294.38 and freebies (Rs 8.17 crore) were also recovered. In all, the total worth of unaccounted money and materials stands at Rs 514.57 crore. 

Responding to a question, the CEO said as far as Tamil Nadu was concerned, booth capturing and use of muscle power were rare. However, the EC had been keeping vigil and had provided additional security to the polling booths which had been identified as sensitive.  

Regarding the complaint that power cuts were manipulated to facilitate distribution of money to the voters, the CEO said, “We have already got a report on this from the TNEB. Except in Thanjavur district where a fire accident was reported, in all districts, 24-hour power supply is being maintained. We have directed the EB to inform the DEOs even if there is interruption of power supply for a short period.”

Report on power cuts 
Regarding the complaint that power cuts were manipulated to facilitate distribution of money to the voters, the CEO said, “We have already got a report on this from TNEB. Except in Thanjavur district where a fire accident was reported, in all other districts, 24-hour power supply is being maintained.”