'EC can hear only symbol case not other AIADMK bylaws issues'

The Election Commission can only decide the case of AIADMK poll symbol and the issues related to the party's bylaws can be heard by courts, the Sasikala faction has argued.

During the sixth hearing in the AIADMK symbol case at the Election Commission today, faction's counsel and Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi also said V K Sasikala's elevation was initially supported by both K Palaniswamy and O Panneerselvam camps but they concealed this fact from the poll body.

"Singhvi argued how a resolution passed on December 29, 2016, elevating V K Sasikala to general secretaryship was deliberately concealed before the EC by the EPS-OPS factions," Sasikala's nephew T T V Dhinakaran's counsel Raja Senthoor Pandian told reporters after the hearing.
 

Pandian claimed that senior party leader Madhusudhanan also did not bring to the EC notice an affidavit he had filed before the Madras High Court backing elevation of VK Sasikala when expelled party MP Sasikala Pushpa had challenged it.

"Citing all these arguments, Singhvi pointed out that the EC had only jurisdiction over symbol and jurisdiction over party and its bylaws rested with civil courts," Pandian said.

EPS-OPS faction counsel Mukul Rohatgi said the Dhinakaran faction ended its arguments today. "We shall be ending our arguments during the next hearing."

The commission posted the matter for November 8.

In an interim order in March this year, the commission had barred then rivals -- Palaniswami and Panneerselvam -- from using the party's name or its 'two leaves' symbol in the R K Nagar Assembly bypoll necessitated by the demise of sitting lawmaker and former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

Prior to the merger, the two factions had staked claim over the symbol. The poll panel had, however, frozen the symbol, pending a decision on their pleas.

Incumbent Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Palaniswami was then a Sasikala loyalist.

Later, a large number of legislators led by Palaniswami revolted against Sasikala, who is now in jail in a disproportionate assets case, and announced the merger of the two factions.