Tamil Nadu Election 2021: Just two days before the polling, the Election Commission seized cash and precious metal such as gold worth Rs 428.46 crore in Tamil Nadu. The commission seized cash of Rs 225.5 crore and the rest was precious metal and liquor worth another Rs 200 crore. The polling for a single phase election in the Southern state will be held on Tuesday. Campaigning for this election ended on Sunday evening.
The EC said the last 72 hours were extremely sensitive from a expenditure stand point. Towards this, the commission said, round the clock surveillance along with CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) teams had been taken up. Patrolling had been strengthened during night and early morning along with expenditure teams and this had resulted in significant seizure in the last 24 hours, the EC said.
According to the EC, Rs 91.56 lakh was seized in Ranipet district, Rs 1.23 crore in Thousand lights constituency, Chennai and Rs 1.15 crore at Veerapandi, Salem. This time, the Commission had identified 105 expenditure sensitive constituencies in Tamil Nadu. As many as 118 Expenditure Observers have been deployed to monitor expenditure by candidates and political parties in the state.
In the past few weeks, raids were conducted in various locations in the state ahead of the elections. Chennai was among the many places that were raided by the agencies. Tamil Nadu Chief Electoral Officer said that Karur topped in seizures followed by Coimbatore, Tirupur and Chennai, the capital city of the state.
Tamil Nadu will go to the polls in a single phase on Tuesday. For 234 seats, nearly 4,000 candidates are in fray and their luck will be decided by over 6.28 crore eligible voters of Tamil Nadu. As many as 3,998 candidates, including Chief Minister K Palaniswami, Deputy CM O Panneerselvam, DMK President MK Stalin, AMMK founder TTV Dhinakaran, actor Kamal Haasan, Naam Tamizhar Katchi chief Seeman and BJP state unit chief L Murugan are in the fray.
