A New Delhi court yesterday sent All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader T T V Dinakaran to five-day police custody.
Special Judge Poonam Chaudhary allowed the Crime Branch to question Dinakaran, a nephew of jailed AIADMK party chief V K Sasikala, for five days after the Delhi police sought his custody to unearth the conspiracy.
Dinakaran was arrested on Tuesday night by the Crime Branch for trying to pay Rs500mn in bribes to Election Commission poll officials through middleman Sukesh Chandrasekar to ensure the ‘two leaves’ poll symbol was allotted to the AIADMK faction led by Sasikala.
Along with 53-year-old Dinakaran, his friend Mallikarjuna was also arrested. Mallikarjuna is alleged to have sheltered Dinakaran despite the police looking for him. 
Police say Dinakaran has confessed to meeting Chandrasekar. However, the AIADMK leader maintains he did not pay any money to Chandrasekar, and has denied the allegations against him.
Chandrasekar was arrested from a South Delhi hotel on April 16 allegedly with over Rs10mn that was meant for bribing poll panel officials. He reportedly told the police he was Dinakaran’s “middleman” and was asked to pay the money to the officials for allotting the ‘two leaves’ party symbol to Dinakaran’s faction of the AIADMK.
Earlier on Tuesday, the court had asked the police why they had not taken any action against Dinakaran.
“The law has done its duty. Dinakaran attacked democracy by trying to bribe the Election Commission officials. He was sent out of the party by our leader former chief minister and party general secretary J Jayalalithaa,” K C Palaniswamy, a former MP said.
Meanwhile, banners with images of Sasikala, the general secretary of the AIADMK (Amma) faction, were removed from the party headquarters in Chennai yesterday. 
According to The Times of India, this comes after presiding chairman of the O Panneerselvam faction, E Madhusudanan, on Tuesday said the banners should be removed to “uphold the sanctity” of the party headquarters.
The Panneerselvam camp welcomed the move, saying it was a “positive step.” 
“This is definitely a positive step,” ‘Aspire’ K Swaminathan, media co-ordinator of the Panneerselvam-led AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) said. 
He also said the move came in “continuance” to Madhusudanan’s appeal and said, “We are happy the cadres have decided to remove the banners.” 
Panneerselvam said that a “conducive” atmosphere was evolving in both camps for merger talks.
Earlier, a senior leader in the Panneerselvam’s camp, K P Munusamy, said the rival camp now led by Chief Minister E Palaniswamy must secure the resignation of Sasikala and Dinakaran from their party posts. Both should also be dismissed from the AIADMK, he said.
Sasikala appointed Dinakaran as the deputy secretary general of the party just before she was jailed.
The Panneerselvam camp on April 20 discussed the developments in the ruling AIADMK, which has decided to sideline Sasikala and Dinakaran and let a panel of leaders run the party. Munusamy also asked the ruling faction to withdraw the affidavit filed with the Election Commission naming Sasikala as the general secretary and Dinakaran as deputy general secretary.
The Panneerselvam faction also urged the state government to send a formal request for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the death of then chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
He also said that after the two factions decide to merge, many legislators would want Panneerselvam to be the chief minister while the party cadres would demand that he also be the AIADMK general secretary.
Jayalalithaa died on December 5 after a prolonged illness, leading to developments that split the AIADMK into two factions. One faction was led by Sasikala and the other by Panneerselvam. After Sasikala took charge of the AIADMK, she forced Panneerselvam to quit, but he later revolted against her.




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