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A day before the polls in Kerala's Assembly elections, Sobha Surendran, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate for the Palakkad constituency, faced allegations of ‘cash for vote’ after a video purportedly showed money being handed over to a voter, allegedly by a party worker.
The video was allegedly shot by Congress workers on Wednesday, April 8. After TV channels aired the clips, the Palakkad district collector sought a report and the election flying squad began an investigation.
Both the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) have said they would lodge complaints against Sobha Surendran for bribing voters.
In the video, aired by the media, a woman is seen handing over money to an elderly woman. Afterwards, the woman is seen walking towards the area where the BJP vehicles are parked. Sobha Surendran was also present in one of the vehicles. A video also showed Sobha entering into an argument with persons inside a car, allegedly Congress workers, over videographing her.
Congress leader and former Palakkad MLA Shafi Parambil said the incident exposed the BJP's inability to win the Palakkad seat on its own merit. "The BJP has accepted its defeat. Palakkad is a constituency where the Prime Minister himself came and campaigned directly. Now they openly admit that even after campaigning by a PM, there is no chance of winning," he said.
NMR Rasak, the LDF candidate in Palakkad, accused the BJP of running a money-driven campaign, saying party workers had reported similar incidents in the past. "They used to go to houses of mourning and weddings to distribute money. But it was only today that they were caught. We were sure they would be caught, and we had been waiting for this. This kind of politics will not work in front of the people of Palakkad," he said.
Sobha Surendran has denied the allegation and said that the media by portraying her as someone who gives money for votes insulted the voters of Palakkad. “The news was presented in a way that the people of Palakkad accept money for votes,” she said.
She also alleged that a vehicle had been tailing her since morning, and that its occupants were responsible for recording the video. She told the media that the man who filmed her had made a sexually harassing gesture at her on three occasions, and that her confrontation with them had stemmed from that provocation.