With the Election Commission tightening its crackdown on political parties distributing cash to gain votes, the Tamil Nadu police have recovered Rs. 36 crore (Rs. 360 million) of unaccounted cash and gold jewellery worth over Rs. 10 crore (Rs. 100 million) in the past three weeks.
The two districts where most of the cash and jewellery has been recovered are Madurai and Tiruchirapalli, both bastions of the rulng DMK, especially of party supremo M Karunanidhi's son and Union minister, MK Alagiri.
The biggest recovery so far was in Tiruchirapalli when a police team, working on a specific alert, recovered more than Rs. 5 crore (Rs. 50 million) hidden on top of a bus.
Senior police officials here reveal that in the past 16 days, they have registered 118 cases, mostly against DMK members.
They also raided an Alagiri convoy on specific intelligence inputs that a car in it was carrying money to be distributed to people.
Also, senior police officials in both cities say they've been receiving threat calls from political parties and their members.
Police teams also indicate that the influence of political parties is so deeply entrenched that in most cases, the information about police raids on convoys, transport buses and cars get leaked out by their own men who have affiliation to a specific party.
"We have so far recovered over Rs. 7 crore (Rs. 70 million) cash during raids and another Rs. 21 lakh that was being given to policemen as bribes to allow members of political parties to smuggle and distribute cash to voters.
"We are
still not sure if we have managed to completely stop political parties from distributing cash to people," said Asra Garg, the superintendent of police, who is spearheading the entire campaign in and around the temple city.