Delhi Police question Dinakaran in election symbol bribery case
AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran was on Saturday questioned by the Delhi Police crime branch for his alleged role in the attempt to bribe a middle man to secure the disputed ‘two leaves’ party symbol.
The middleman, Sukesh Chandrashekhar, arrested by police had allegedly promised to use his contacts in the Election Commission to get the symbol for his faction.
Senior crime branch officials told HT that Dinakaran was not very ‘cooperative’ during the questioning and refuted almost all the allegations against him. Dinakaran’s questioning was on till the filing of this report. Officials said they would call Dinakaran for another round of questioning soon, after serving him another notice.
An FIR was registered against him last Sunday after Chandrasekhar was arrested from a city five-star hotel and ₹1.3 crore and two luxury cars were recovered from him, the police said.
A senior crime branch official said that Dinakaran was given a set of over 50 questions that were related to his alleged role in the case and his alleged association with Chandrasekar. “Most of the questions were related to the disclosures made by Chandrasekar during his interrogation. Dinakaran, however, maintained his earlier stand that he did not know Chandrasekar and had never met him. We also questioned him about the ₹50 crore deal Chandrasekar claimed to have had with him for retaining the ‘two leaves’ party symbol,” said a senior crime branch official.
Crime branch officials said that Dinakaran was asked to explain why and on whose behalf he was attempting to bribe the EC official. He was also asked about the money that was allegedly paid by him to Chandrasekar. “Dinakaran maintained that he had no role in the bribery attempt case,” the officer said.