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Case against Alagiri for ‘assaulting’ EC videographer
Union chemicals and fertilisers minister MK Alagiri is having frequent brushes with the Election Commission. KV Lakshmana reports.
Union chemicals and fertilisers minister MK Alagiri is having frequent brushes with the Election Commission.
In one incident, cases were registered against him on Friday after he and his supporters allegedly used abusive language and assaulted a tehsildar and videographer sent by the Commission to record the electioneering in Madurai.
As regards the other case, on Thursday Alagiri had shot off angry letters to President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, complaining against the Election Commission’s decision to remove guards of Tamil Nadu police from his Madurai residence.
The Commission had ordered removing Tamil Nadu policemen and putting CRPF personnel on security duty, guided by one state police person, at Alagiri’s Madurai residence.
The Election Commission would be responsible should anything happen to him or his property, Alagiri said in his letters.
On Friday, the Madurai police commissioner, upon whose orders the 27 police constables working at Alagiri’s residence had been removed, were sent back to their posts, Tamil Nadu chief electoral officer Praveen Kumar told Hindustan Times.
“It is not the scaling down of security but strengthening it with the presence of paramilitary personnel,” he said when asked why such a diktat was issued.
Chief minister M Karunanidhi has accused Commission officials of “imposing” emergency in the state.
