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The chief electoral officer of Tamil Nadu, Praveen Kumar, has taken action against 10 companies, including information technology (IT) majors Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), for "restraining" their employees from voting in Thursday's Lok Sabha election phase.
The state, all the 39 seats of which went to polls on Thursday, saw a lower voter turnout of 73 per cent, compared with 80 per cent in the previous election.
Kumar said actions were taken after two kinds of teams - one led by returning officers and another of labour department officials - visited the offices of these companies.
At TCS' Spencer Plaza office in Chennai, a labour department team found 30 of the centre's 300 employees working on Thursday. Similarly, around 30,000 people were at work on the company's Siruseri campus. While 76 of HCL's 9,000 Navalur campus employees were working, 200 of Wipro's 4,000 employees were also present.
"I have asked for a first information report (FIR) to be filed against these companies under Section 135 (B) of the Representation of the People Act (which provides for grant of paid holiday to employees on the day of polling)," said Kumar.
B Ravichandran, the tahsildar who had initiated action, confirmed the development. He said he had carried out an inspection at the Elcot Special Economic Zone in Sholinganallur (near Chennai) on the district collector's instruction.
Despite the Election Commission's advice, these companies had asked their employees to come to work, Ravichandran said, adding he asked all 5,000 employees to leave the premises immediately. "They (the companies) had insisted the employees come to work, against the Election Commission's advice." The tahsildar sealed one of the two gates and left the other for the employees to exit.
An emailed statement from Wipro said: "Our offices in Tamil Nadu have been closed on account of general elections, to enable employees to vote. Staff in business-critical functions have been given the option of flexible work timings to facilitate the exercise of franchise by them."
TCS said it had not received any notice from the Election Commission. "We can confirm that our office at the Elcot SEZ was completely shut on Thursday. TCS has across the country declared voting days as holidays, to encourage its employees to exercise their democratic franchise," said a spokesperson for TCS.
While HCL did not respond to an email sent by Business Standard, an L&T Infotech spokesperson and a Tech India official did not respond to phone calls.
Tahsildar Ravichandran, who also stationed a special squad to ensure the SEZ remained shut for the day, said a case was filed against these companies at Semmanjeri Police Station and action taken under Section 25 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. Asked what penalty or punishment could be slapped on the companies, he said that needed to be discussed.
Inspector Sivakumar of the police station concerned confirmed he had received a complaint but said he was not in a position to reveal any other information.
The Election Commission had sent several messages through the media and other modes that action would be taken against the establishments that did not offer their employees in the state a holiday on April 24. The advice was made with the aim of increasing polling percentage in urban areas.
