News18 Daybreak | The Political Drama Ahead of Tamil Nadu Elections and Other Stories You Need to Watch Out For

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The Political Drama Ahead of Tamil Nadu Elections: I-T Officers Search Kanimozhi's House, DMK Cries Foul

After conducting several raids on residences of opposition leaders in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, the Income Tax department has now trained its guns at Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)’s Kanimozhi.

Just less than 48 hours before the constituency hits the polls, a team of I-T officials and a static surveillance team of the Election Commission on Tuesday evening conducted searches at the Rajya Sabha MP’s residence in Thoothukudi in south Tamil Nadu region.

As the sleuths didn’t find anything from the searches, Kanimozhi and other DMK leaders slammed the PM Modi-led Centre’s over what they called attempts to subdue the opposition parties.

A scathing criticism: Kanimozhi, the daughter of former chief minister and party chief M Karunanidhi, is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Thoothukudi against Tamil Nadu BJP chief Tamilisai Soundararajan.

According to her, the searches were illegal since they were allegedly conducted without a requisite warrant. I-T sources, however, said that the searches were a “normal verification procedure”.

Kanimozhi has accused the EC of unfairly targeting her since she was a member of the opposition party. “These incidents only strongly confirm that Modi is using EC to threaten us. We will not be cowed down by these incidents” she said and added, “Tamilisia has parked several crores of rupees in her residence. Is the EC ready to conduct searches there?”

DMK president MK Stalin also echoed what she said and slammed the poll body saying that it is “deliberately being used by (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi to target opposition party leaders”.

Meanwhile, several DMK party workers staged a protest outside Kanimozhi’s resident in solidarity and raised “Down With Modi” slogans.

No polling in Vellore: President Ram Nath Kovind has accepted the Election Commission's recommendation to cancel the election in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore over excessive use of money power, days after a large sum of cash was seized from the warehouse of a DMK candidate.

The EC’s recommendation had been sent after cash seizures from the premises of DMK veteran leader and party treasurer Duraimurugan’s son Kathir Anand’s house in Vellore on March 29.

Polling for the two Assembly seats under the Vellore LS seat - Ambur and Gudiyattam - facing bypolls, will go ahead as planned on Thursday as the order was specific to the Lok Sabha election, officials told News18.

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