The dispute over AIADMK’s symbol is over, but questions remain over bye-poll for Jayalalithaa's seat

The dispute over the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s two-leaves election symbol came to an end on Thursday, with the faction led by Chief Minister E Palaniswami bagging the coveted asset that has become synonymous with the ruling party and its founder MG Ramachandran.

Citing the support of the majority of party legislators and parliamentarians, the Election Commission of India allotted the symbol to the Palaniswami faction, which united with Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam’s group in August.

A day later, on Friday, the commission notified the date for the bye-poll to Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar, the Chennai constituency that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa held that has been vacant since her death in December last year. The poll will be held on December 21 with results on December 24.

Bye-elections are usually conducted within six months of a seat going vacant. But an attempt by the Election Commission to hold elections to this seat on April 12 ended in failure after allegations that voters were being bribed on a large scale. The poll body was forced to countermand the poll after the Income-Tax Department raided several AIADMK functionaries, including Health Minister C Vijayabhaskar, in early April and claimed that there was evidence to prove that Rs 89 crores had been distributed in the constituency during the election campaign. The Election Commission recorded this detail in its order cancelling the bye-poll. Over Rs 5 crores in cash was seized from two persons connected to the minister.

However, there has been no progress in the investigation since then. In the meantime, tectonic shifts have taken place in the AIADMK, with Palaniswami deciding to sever ties with Jayalalithaa’s aide VK Sasikala and join hands with Panneerselvam, who in January rebelled against her leadership. In February, Sasikala was convicted in a disproportionate assets case and was sentenced to four years in prison, a term she is currently serving in Bengaluru.

The notification for the bye-poll comes in the wake of directions from the Madras High Court, which had set a deadline of December 31 for the process.

The Election Commission has several questions to answer as it readies to conduct the election to the Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar seat. How has the scenario changed on the ground so as to enable the conduct of a free and fair election? And can cash distribution to voters be curbed?

Cash for votes

On April 6, when the Income-Tax Department raided Vijayabhaskar’s home, Palaniswami was firmly behind Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dinakaran, who was also his faction’s candidate for the bye-poll. After the election was cancelled, Dinakaran was booked by the Delhi police for trying to influence the Election Commission through bribes to get the two-leaves symbol allotted to his faction. The symbol was suspended by the election authority just days before polling was supposed to take place in April. Dinakaran was also arrested later.

Following the realignment of the two AIADMK factions in August, Palaniswami and Panneerselvam moved the Election Commission together to retrieve the party’s symbol, which they successfully managed on Thursday. The announcement for a fresh bye-poll came the next day.

Unanswered questions

One of the reasons for the delay in the bye-poll was a case filed by the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam alleging that over 45,000 bogus voters had been added to the voters’ list in Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar. The commission first dismissed these claims. But last week, it conceded before the Madras High Court that the DMK’s allegation was indeed true and that it had removed all bogus voters in the list.

While this would partly answer the question over the delay in the conduct of the poll, many other doubts remain. First, the investigation into large-scale bribing of voters in the constituency in April seems to have come to a standstill. The Income-Tax Department has not revealed where the cases currently stand and what action is being initiated against Vijayabhaskar, who continues to remain a minister.

The same players are expected to take the field when the election campaign begins in the next few days. Dinakaran has already announced that he will contest the bye-poll. The Palaniswami team is expected to field senior leader E Madhusudhanan, who was the candidate for the Panneerselvam faction in April.

The Election Commission has not explained how the scenario on the ground has changed between April and now, and what measures it has initiated to stop the distribution of cash as bribes to voters. In fact, the election authority’s advocate told the Madras High Court on Tuesday that it could be difficult to conduct the elections before December 31 in view of the Christmas celebrations at the end of the year. Following this, the High Court said that it had not stipulated that the bye-poll must be held by December 31, but had only said that it had expected the commission to hold the poll by then.

Election officials in Tamil Nadu, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that festival time was not the ideal time to conduct a bye-poll since cracking down on cash movement and distribution would become difficult. “Voters will be in need of money during festivals so very few people will complain,” a senior official said.

Since the High Court did not insist on the December 31 deadline, several officials are not clear as to why the Election Commission is rushing to conduct the election. “It would have been ideal to conduct the bye-poll after Pongal,” the official added. The Pongal festival is celebrated in mid-January.

Second, there is also a fear that the poll authority may go ahead with the election come what may as it cannot afford to countermand the bye-poll for a second time as that would be akin to conceding that the poll machinery has broken down completely.

Meanwhile, Dinakaran told Scroll.in that the cases filed against him were politically motivated. “I will contest the bye-polls as the situation demands it,” he said.