Tirusulam election results rigged: Opposition

CHENNAI: Candidates who contested for the village panchayat president’s post in Thirusulam have charged that the votes polled were manipulated to benefit the ruling party candidate.Addressing the media, the opposition candidates, including those of the DMK and the DMDK, stated that the ruling party candidate Saraswathi was declared elected to the post through manipulation and deceit.“However, the number of votes secured as announced by the officials involved in the counting did not match with the number of votes polled as per the announcement of the officials on polling day,” said R Thilagavathi, DMK candidate.“For instance, the number of votes polled for panchayat president was 7,478 while that for panchayat union ward member was 7,574, which can be checked in the official results website of the State Election Commission,” said Palpandi, Tamilaga Makkal Munnetra Kalagam candidate who contested for the president’s post. “We had presented petitions to the Election Commission seeking videographing of the counting process, which was not accepted. Had the process been videographed, this issue would have never happened and the actual people’s representative would have been elected to the  president,” he added.“During the counting, the officials collected the ballot papers from the ballot boxes and segregated votes for the respective posts. The officials then took the ballot paper-loaded boxes upstairs and delayed the counting process for over an hour,” Kannaiah, the DMDK candidate, said, and alleged, “The officials did not pay heed to the objections raised by the candidates and their supporters when the seal on the ballot paper was different from the one used on the day of polling.”Palpandi said that they had taken up this issue with the Kancheepuram district administration and the State Election Commission. A complaint to this effect had been faxed to both the offices and copies were mailed through registered post.Eswari of Puthiya Tamilagam and Muthumariamman of Communist Party of  India (CPI), who contested for Ward 4 in the village panchayat, and others were present during the press conference.