Election Commission seizes Rs 570 cr; 'It's ours,' says State Bank of India
Chennai: The curtain came down on the nearly two month-long gruelling campaign for the May 16 Assembly election on Saturday. More than 5.79 crore voters in the state will decide the fate of 3,776 aspirants.
Tamil Nadu is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with AIADMK, DMK, PWA-DMDK-TMC combine, BJP and PMK candidates in the fray.
Chief Minister, J.Jayalalithaa is seeking a successive term in office, where elections have dethroned ruling parties in recent decades. As many as 65,616 polling booths have been set up in 32 districts and 6,300 booths have been identified as sensitive, where security had been beefed up.
Meanwhile, a whopping Rs 570 crore, being transported in three container trucks from Coimbatore to Andhra Pradesh by State Bank of India, was seized by election officials in Tirupur. The three container lorries loaded with bundles of cash and escorted by police personnel from Andhra Pradesh were intercepted by election officials near Chengapalli in Tirupur district last Friday.
However, SBI produced documents to claim the sum seized stating that it was an inter-bank money transfer. Arundhatri Bhattacharya, the bank chairman, said, “This is legitimate money that was being transferred by the banks from Chennai to Hyderabad and it has got nothing to do with the election money as reported in the media.”
Senior officials of SBI are in Tirupur to establish the bank’s ownership of the funds. A senior SBI official said the containers were erroneously confiscated and the bank officials were talking to police supported by documents.
EC notice to Jayalalithaa , Karunanidhi
Election Commission on Saturday night issued notices to Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa and DMK chief M Karunanidhi for violating model code of conduct by not “reflecting rationale for the promises” made in their parties’ manifestos and ways to meet financial requirements for implementing them. The Election Commission asked both of them to explain their stand for non-compliance of guidelines of the agency.
