“DMK will face anything, we are not afraid of this,” said DMK candidate for Thoothukudi parliamentary constituency Kanimozhi on Tuesday evening just after Income Tax officials raided her residence. Speaking to reporters at 10.44pm on Tuesday, Kanimozhi said, “Income Tax officers reached my house around 8.30 pm. We cooperated with them fully. I asked them if they had the necessary permissions, and they did not give me a proper response.”
The DMK leader said that she went on to ask if the I-T officials had the required documents to search her premises. “They did not have it but I allowed them to go on. When I asked them who they wanted to meet, they said ‘candidate, candidate’. This means they wanted to target me as I am the candidate of the DMK alliance,” she said.
Kanimozhi also said, “They didn't show me the complaint. They said there was a complaint here. They said nothing was there. This is to bring bad name to the DMK.”
Pointing out that the raids against her were not the first against a DMK leader in Thoothukudi, Kanimozhi earlier in April. “Two times Anitha Radhakrishnan (DMK’s Thoothukudi South District Secretary) has been raided. They have searched without any basis. They have unfairly stopped elections in Vellore. They were probably hoping to find something here and use that as a reason to cancel polls in Thoothukudi too. But they were unsuccessful,” she alleged.
Alleging that the Election Commission and Income Tax Depart are in an alliance with Modi, Kanimozhi said, “They are attempting to intimidate opposition parties.” She added, “Stalin has asked and I am also asking are they ready to search Tamilisai?”
Kanimozhi is the candidate for the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu and is up against BJP State President Tamilisai Soundararajan, who is the AIADMK-led alliance’s candidate.
Tamil Nadu goes to polls on April 18. After the election to the Vellore seat was cancelled owing to cash seizures from the residence of a DMK candidate, Lok Sabha polls will be held only in 38 out of 39 constituencies. Bye-elections will be held to 18 Assembly seats simultaneously on Thursday. Polls to 4 more Assembly constituencies will be held on May 19. Results will be announced on May 23.