Voters are being given bribes in Coimbatore, Tirupur: DMK

COIMBATORE: Four days after the 2021 assembly election was announced, allegations of voter bribery by the ruling party have started surfacing in Coimbatore and Tirupur.
DMK men lodged a complaint with Coimbatore district collector K Rajamani on Tuesday that AIADMK functionaries have stocked up gifts meant to be distributed to voters in the city. Singanallur MLA N Karthik, who met the collector, said that they have thwarted a bid to distribute gifts at Peelamedu on Monday night, but the attempts to distribute was continuing, especially in the nights.
DMK men alleged that gift hampers of dhotis, sarees bearing the images of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa and CM Edappadi K Palaniswami, were stocked at the house of an AIADMK man in Peelamedu, falling in Singanallur assembly segment.
“On Monday night, the gifts were taken out in a car belonging to a local AIADMK man to be distributed. DMK ward secretary Madasamy spotted the car with the gift sporting EPS and Jayalalithaa images. Immediately we complained to the police and handed over the car to police. But police let the car go without any action. We have now complained to the election officials,’’ said advocate Krishnamurthy of DMK. After the incident, the AIADMK men have shifted the gifts from the house where it was stocked to another location, Krishnamurthy said.
At Dharapuram in Tirupur, the election officials seized 1,700 sarees and 4,500 dhoties from a private college building on Monday night based on a complaint from DMK cadres. On the same college premises, an election flying squad seized 1,950 stainless steel plates stacked in a minitruck. Here again, the dhotis and sarees were wrapped in covers bearing the images of EPS, OPS, S P Velumani and Jayalalithaa.