Police on Monday registered a case against Kerala BJP president K Surendran following the disclosure that the saffron party had paid money to a rival candidate to withdraw his nomination in Manjeshwaram constituency, from where Surendran had unsuccessfully contested the recent Assembly polls.
Kasaragod police registered the case under IPC Sections 171 (B) and 171 (E), which deal with inducing a person to exercise any electoral right or rewarding any person from having exercised any such right and bribery, respectively. The police acted on a direction from the judicial magistrate court in Kasaragod, where LDF leader V V Rameshan moved a petition seeking a direction to police to register an FIR.
On Saturday, BSP leader K Sundara had alleged that the BJP had paid him Rs 2.5 lakh and given him a smartphone to withdraw his nomination from Manjeshwaram. Sundara, who had also contested the 2016 polls, stated that he had demanded Rs 10 lakh to withdraw. He was offered a wine parlour and a new house in Karnataka.
Police recorded Sundara’s statement, who alleged he was abducted by local BJP leaders who forced him to withdraw his nomination. After withdrawing his nomination as a BSP candidate, Sundara had joined the BJP.
On March 21, Sundara had announced he would withdraw his nomination. On that day, former Yuva Morcha state treasurer Sunil Naik had visited him at his home in Kasaragod’s Badiyadukka village. Sunil, in his Facebook page, had announced Sundara’s decision to withdraw the nomination.
Incidentally, the name of Sunil, a native of Kozhikode, had figured in connection with the highway robbery of Rs 3.5 crore, three days before the Assembly elections. Sunil had told police that he had paid Rs 25 lakh to RSS worker A K Dharmarajan for his real estate investment. Dharmarajan had claimed that he had lost only Rs 25 lakh in the robbery, but police have so far recovered over Rs 1 crore.
Doubts whether CPM, BJP will reach pact to end probe: Congress
Thiruvananthapuram: The Congress Monday said that “people have doubts†whether the CPI(M) and BJP “would reach an understanding to end the probe†into the gold smuggling and highway robbery cases as both parties have cases to settle mutually.
The remarks were made by Opposition leader V D Satheesan after Chief Minister Pinarayii Vijayan’s reply to a notice for an adjournment motion moved by Coingress’s Shafi Parambil. “People have doubts whether both parties would reach an understanding to end the probe into smuggling and robbery cases. The government action against BJP should not be like a fight in a circus in which there would not be any action but only sounds.†—ENS
