Attempt to bribe TVK MLA: Five more held

Chennai police arrested five more people in the alleged TVK MLA bribery case, taking total arrests to eight. The accused allegedly conspired to offer ₹35 crore to MLA N Elaiyaraja to support a proposed no-confidence motion against the Assembly Speaker.

Chennai: Five more persons have been arrested in connection with the allegation of an attempt to bribe a TVK MLA, taking the number of arrests so far in the case to eight, police said.

Following a complaint from the ruling party legislator N Elaiyaraja, representing the Uthangarai Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri district, the Triplicane police here arrested Selvan of Pallikaranai; E M Srinivasan, 46, of Madambakkam; Rajesh, 43, of Chromepet; Karthik, 43, and Ramesh, 45, of Karur district.

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Thirunavukkarasu of Arumbakkam along with Naresh of Tiruchirappalli and Thiyagarajan of Medavakkam were arrested on July 1, and remanded to judicial custody, police said.

In his complaint on June 29, Elaiyaraja said he received a phone call from one Thirunavukkarasu, pollster from Indian Political Democratic Strategies (IPDS), claiming to represent certain functionaries from a major political party had offered Rs 35 crore to him to vote in favour of the “no confidence motion” to be brought against the Speaker in the Assembly.

The MLA claimed he was threatened when he declined to accept, and that even his family was intimidated. He sought the police to take appropriate action against Thirunavukarasu.

During the probe, it came to light that Karthik and Ramesh held talks with Naresh at a star hotel in ECR, and sought the legislator’s cooperation during the proposed “no confidence motion” against the Speaker.

Accordingly, Naresh invited Srinivasan, Selvan and Rajesh to a hotel at Guindy, here, through his friend Thiyagarajan and conspired to bribe the MLA, a release from the police said and added that all the 5 persons were produced before a city court on July 2 and remanded to judicial custody.

Further investigation was on.