The South Indian Artistes Association, known popularly as Nadigar Sangam, has filed a writ petition in the Madras High Court accusing the police of having refused to provide security for the elections to the association scheduled to be held at Dr. MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science in Raja Annamalaipuram on Sunday.

Nadigar Sangam secretary and actor Vishal Krishna claimed that former High Court judge E. Padmanabhan had been appointed as election officer for the elections.

It was he who chose the college as the venue for the election after visiting many other places and taking into consideration several relevant factors, he said.

Though there were over 3,000 eligible voters in the Nadigar Sangam, more than 1,000 of them were expected to vote through postal ballot and even among the rest only 1,500 to 2,000 members were expected to vote in person, the petitioner said and claimed that the college could easily accommodate them as well as their cars.

Nevertheless, On the basis of a representation given by a rival candidate claiming the venue to be insufficient for conduct of elections, the police had written a letter to the college expressing their inability to provide protection and the management of the college, in turn, was not willing to provide the venue without security, Mr. Krishna said.

Recalling that the city police had made good security arrangements during the 2015 elections at the instructions of the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who was also a member of the association, the petitioner said: “but unfortunately, this time the police have not really been transparent in informing the association or the Election Officer if they would provide adequate protection or not.”