Chennai: Inept officials quote poll code to seize book on Rafale deal

Chennai: A Tamil booklet of 48 pages slamming the Rafale deal was released here on Tuesday amid much excitement as some 'enthusiastic' election officials and policemen seized the copies earlier in the day alleging it violated the poll code.

With the seizure sparking massive outrage on social media, Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo stepped in and had the booklet returned to the publisher 'Bharathi Puththagalayam' which went through the release ritual in the evening. The booklet titled 'Naattai ulukkum Rafale bera oozhal' (Rafale scam that shook the country) was authored by S Vijayan and contained embarrassing allegations on the Modi Government letting private companies to gain out of the deal.

Terming the seizure as “totally unfair”, P.K. Rajan, an editor at Bharati Puththagalayam, pointed out that the booklet was a mere consolidation of information already available in the public domain. He said a team of election officers and policemen came to the showroom in the morning and took away the 142 copies of the booklet kept ready for the release early evening.

When the seizure of the booklet caused uproar on social media, CEO Sahoo ordered the district election officer to conduct an immediate inquiry into the episode and later told reporters he had no knowledge of the raid on the bookshop.

“It seems some lower-level officer has done some seizure of the books. They had no direction from the Election Commission of India or from my office. I think some flying squad officer must have acted on the information that some books without permission are being distributed,” he said. Apart from the fierce attack on the EC for the seizure, enthusiasts posted online the PDF version of the booklet. Among the bitterest critics was actor-politician Prakash Raj, who tweeted his condemnation of the seizure and questioned the fairness in the poll process when Vijayan's booklet is seized while “a film on Modi and channels like Namo TV are spared”.