Crackdown reveals extent of graft culture in TN

With the Election Commission tightening its crackdown on political parties distributing cash to gain votes, the Tamil Nadu police have recovered Rs. 36 crore (Rs. 360 million) of unaccounted cash and gold jewellery worth over Rs. 10 crore (Rs. 100 million) in the past three weeks.

The two districts where most of the cash and jewellery has been recovered are Madurai and Tiruchirapalli, both bastions of the rulng DMK, especially of party supremo M Karunanidhi's son and Union minister, MK Alagiri.

The biggest recovery so far was in Tiruchirapalli when a police team, working on a specific alert, recovered more than Rs. 5 crore (Rs. 50 million) hidden on top of a bus.

Senior police officials here reveal that in the past 16 days, they have registered 118 cases, mostly against DMK members.

They also raided an Alagiri convoy on specific intelligence inputs that a car in it was carrying money to be distributed to people.

Also, senior police officials in both cities say they've been receiving threat calls from political parties and their members.

Police teams also indicate that the influence of political parties is so deeply entrenched that in most cases, the information about police raids on convoys, transport buses and cars get leaked out by their own men who have affiliation to a specific party.

"We have so far recovered over Rs. 7 crore (Rs. 70 million) cash during raids and another Rs. 21 lakh that was being given to policemen as bribes to allow members of political parties to smuggle and distribute cash to voters.

"We are still not sure if we have managed to completely stop political parties from distributing cash to people," said Asra Garg, the superintendent of police, who is spearheading the entire campaign in and around the temple city.

Sources in the police say they've found that political parties have given each member the task of distributing money to at least 100 voters.

"According to our information, the going rate is Rs. 200 per voter, apart from all the other benefits like supply of liquor, lungis, silver pots and sarees," said another senior official in Tiruchirapalli, part of the crackdown.

Senior police officials also say the crackdown was so massive that in Tiruchirapalli and Madurai, 4,000 personnel are just involved in recovering cash and jewellery from political workers.

"Every other police action has come to a standstill. We are only busy conducting raids and recovering cash and jewellery.

"As a result of the crackdown, there are only one or two policemen in every police station doing the regular duty of registering cases of people. The remaining people are all involved in checking vehicles for cash and jewellery," added a senior officer.

Senior officials say they've formed check points at least five km outside the towns, so that constables can check vehicles coming in.

"We have recovered cash from political workers who had disguised themselves as villagers and were trying walk into the cities while carrying money in their bags," added an officer.

"Police also said there have been instances when women have been caught carrying cash and in once instance, close to Madurai, a tea stall vendor was caught hiding Rs. 40 lakh cash.