A reporter for a local TV station in Chennai, India, named Rakesh Kumar, who is 32 years old, and his cameraman, Karuppiah, have filed a police report saying that AIADMK members attacked them while they were trying to expose cash distribution on Wednesday for the byelection in Erode East constituency.
The two were also attacked by members of the party in power, the DMK, on Tuesday as they went live to show how the party was breaking the poll code. On social media, there are pictures of politicians hitting and pushing Rakesh and trying to get the camera away from him.
The FIR has been filed, said S. Anandakumar, the deputy superintendent of police in Erode. “We don’t want to say under which parts of the law we filed the case. Since it has to do with the by-elections, we’ve told the election officials about it,” the DSP said.
Rakesh told Deccan Era what had happened over the last two days from the government hospital in Erode, where he is being treated for injuries to his back, head, neck, and arms. Rakesh and Karuppiah were at a tea shop when a local told them that about 100 people were being paid cash to vote for them in the byelection in front of a house near the tea shop.
When Rakesh got there, 100 people were waiting with their voter IDs, and he called for his camera person when he saw some men giving them money. By the time Karuppiah started white balancing (a technique used in photography and film to get the colours to look good together) before recording, they were already too busy. “It took less than ten seconds,” Rakesh said. “One guy asked who we were, another told us to stop, and another yelled at us to take the camera away.”
Someone took him by the arm and said politely that they needed to talk. “Once they brought us inside, his voice changed completely. He turned me around. It was broken by them. “About 15 men beat us both until we were bloody and bruised,” Rakesh said. As they ran away, his cameraman was able to get away, but Rakesh fell down. Rakesh said, “They stomped on my back.” “They hit me with punches and kicks in random places on my body, so I’m badly hurt.”
Rakesh was able to get away in the end. He called the police helpline 100 in Tamil Nadu, and they came to the scene. A government ambulance came and took him and the person who was with him. They have complained to the police, but they have not yet complained to the election officials in Erode.
Rakesh said that the men hit them and asked them why they weren’t recording other people giving out cash. “We don’t see any difference between the parties. Our office has helped us go live whenever we find that someone has broken the rules.
Rakesh went live on Tuesday from a place where, according to him, Congress has set up sheds to keep voters there from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. so that they don’t run into the opposition camp. This has been denied by Congress. “But I talked to old women who said that for the past ten days, they had been paid 500, had food and tea, and stayed in the temporary sheds,” Rakesh said. “A member of the DMK party punched my cameraman in the hip and bent my arm, but they let us go because they said only party members are in the sheds.”
The AIADMK and the DMK haven’t said anything yet.
For the Erode East by-election, there are a lot of complaints about poll code violations. These range from giving cash to voters to attacking people from the other party. The complaints are about the DMK and their candidate for Congress, as well as the AIADMK and NTK. As of Tuesday, there had been 455 complaints. The DMDK, which is led by Vijayakanth, has asked Tamil Nadu’s chief electoral officer to cancel the election, saying that the DMK and AIADMK are paying voters to vote for them. The by-election will take place on February 27. AIADMK, which is led by Edappadi Palaniswami, has put forward K S Thennarasu as their candidate. K S Thennarasu is the candidate of DMK’s ally Congress. Also involved are NTK and DMDK.
