Chennai: The Madras HC has reserved orders on a petition, which sought a direction to the Election Commission to include expenses of three star campaigners including R. Sarathkumar of All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi, in the electoral expenditure of TN Chief Minister and AIADMK candidate J. Jayalalithaa in the by-election to the R.K. Nagar Assembly constituency.
Justice M. Sathyanarayanan reserved orders on the petition filed by Makkal Manadu Katchi candidate T. Paulraj, which also sought to restrain Saratkumar, A. Narayanan and S.K. Tamilarasan from campaigning in constituency as star campaigners. According to petitioner, the ECI has been bestowing star campaigner status to the leaders of political parties whereby the expenditure on account of campaigning of such leaders shall not be included in the expenditure of the candidate.
Accordingly, a recognised political party was allowed to have 40 star campaigners and registered political party was allowed to have 20 star campaigners. Sarathkumar and Narayanan were shown as star campaigners of AISMK and Tamilarasan was shown as star campaigner of Indiya Kudiarasu Katchi. These three persons were sitting AIADMK members in the TN legislative Assembly. Thus, the total number of star campaigners of AIADMK was 43. This was a clear violation of poll code.
