CHENNAI: Thangkabalu caught on the wrong foot

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai, on March 31, 2011:

Link:http://expressbuzz.com/polls2011/tn/thangkabalu-caught-on-the-wrong-foot/261205.html

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President and party’s Mylapore candidate K V Thangkabalu could face more heat from the Election Commission (EC) in the coming days, as his allegations -- through a written complaint -- against the poll watchdog turned out to be false after due enquiry.

While addressing the media immediately after the rejection of his wife and party’s official candidate Jayanthi Thangkabalu’s nomination papers on Monday, Thangkabalu said they had filed four papers and the applications that were shown to them by the returning officer during the scrutiny were not theirs and appeared to have been tampered with.

Going a step ahead to prove his “innocence”, Thangkabalu also filed a written complaint with the Election Commission against the returning officer of the constituency with a plea to “find the truth”.

However, an enquiry conducted by district election officer D Karthikeyan, who was directed by the chief electoral officer, concluded that there was no truth in Thangkabalu’s allegations against the returning officer.

Speaking to Express, Karthikeyan said, “Both the allegations made by Thangkabalu against the poll official were found untrue.”

While the TNCC Prsedident Thangkabalu claimed (in the complaint and as well as in the media) that his wife Jayanthi had submitted four nominations with the returning officer, videos of the entire proceedings recorded by the Election Commission clearly showed that there were only two applications, Karthikeyan said.

On Thangkabalu’s second allegation of alleged tampering of Jayanthi’s nomination papers, Karthikeyan said, “Enquiry with her proposer and councillor, Mangalraj, proved that the applications that were rejected after scrutiny were the same ones.”

Based on these findings, Karthikeyan sent his detailed report to Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Kumar on Tuesday.