Telugu Desam Party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is known for his 'poll management' in the last days of electioneering. His party had won most of the elections in the past only due to its poll-management tactics.
The TDP leaders have been specifically trained to attract voters in the last few days of campaigning with money and other inducements.
The booth-level workers become very active in the final hours to entice the voters. Hundreds of crores of rupees flow only in the last two days before polling.
Now that Naidu had developed enmity with the Bharatiya Janata Party and particularly targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Centre is going all out to thwart Naidu’s poll management tactics in the eleventh hour.
The ongoing raids by the Income Tax department authorities on several TDP leaders and also by the local police working under the instructions of the Election Commission are part of the Centre’s strategy to prevent the TDP from indulging in any last minute poll management activities.
On Friday, the Kadapa police conducted a raid on the residences of TDP Rajya Sabha member C M Ramesh at his residence in Potladurthy of Erranguntla block to find out whether he had stashed any money in his house for distribution among the voters. However, they did not find much, as Ramesh had taken all precautionary measures.
A couple of days ago, the IT authorities raided the house of Ramesh’s friend and TDP candidate for Mydukuru constituency in Putta Sudhakar Yadav.
Earlier, last week, the ED attached the properties worth over Rs 300 crore belonging to Sujana Group promoted by another Rajya Sabha member Sujana Chowdary.
Ramesh alleged that the Election Commission was acting like a puppet of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.
“It is very clear that the searches were conducted at the behest of the Centre to help the YSR Congress Party. But we are not afraid of any such searches or raids,” Ramesh said.
