Dinakaran: When should I come? You tell me, I will come accordingly.
Chandrashekar: I will tell you and everything will be taken care about. Only thing is I will send you few things on WhatsApp. Just go through that kindly right now and on Monday, your matter is listed before the EC. You know that.
Dinakaran: Yeah, on Monday 17th, I know that.
Chandrashekar: That all things will be taken care (of).
Dinakaran: Okay, Okay.
Chandrashekar: Any other clarification you would like to ask?
Dinakaran: When will the R.K. Nagar election be?
Chandrashekar: That we are planning to call for... what is the earlier we can do that next 15 days is okay.
This is part of an alleged conversation that took place at 11.07pm on April 15 last year when, according to the Delhi Police, Sukesh Chandrashekar, an accused middleman, and expelled AIADMK leader T.T.V. Dinakaran had entered into a conspiracy to bribe certain officials of the Election Commission of India for allotment of the 'two leaves' symbol of the undivided AIADMK to Dinakaran's faction of the party.
A year later as the trial of the case begins, the Delhi Police is confident that it has enough technical and material evidence to establish how the alleged attempts to usurp J. Jayalalithaa's legacy were made, undermining the electoral process and attempting to corrupt the system. The hearing of the case is slated for May 5 and all eyes are on the lengthy telephonic conversations that form a key part of the evidence against Dinakaran.
But the Delhi Police probe is hamstrung because of the simple fact that it has not managed to identify who in the Election Commission or elsewhere was supposed to be bribed to get a favourable decision on the party symbol.
One Pramod Kumar Sharma, a deputy secretary in Election Commission of India, was named by Chandrashekar in his disclosure statement and in conversations between him and Dinakaran. Dinakaran was also interrogated, but he denied the allegations levelled against him. Investigations with respect to officials of ECI have also been done but no involvement was found, said Delhi Police sources.
"That's the reason my clients have been granted bail by the court. It is a politically cooked-up charge-sheet," says Naveen Malhotra, who represents Dinakaran and another accused in the case.
After the demise of Jayalalithaa, a factional feud broke out in the AIADMK. One of the factions was led by Jayalalithaa's former aide V.K. Sasikala. Both the factions laid claim to the two leaves symbol of the party. Finally, the EC ruled in favour of granting the symbol to the E. Palaniswami-O. Panneerselvam faction.
Despite not getting the all-important symbol, Dinakaran's faction managed to keep itself politically relevant and won the R.K. Nagar byelection held last year in December. Dinakaran himself was the candidate for the R.K. Nagar seat and against all odds, managed to wrest the seat by a huge margin of more than 40,000 votes.
But his troubles are still far from over. The Delhi Police alleges that Dinakaran tried to garner the symbol for his faction by offering bribes through middlemen.
While naming Dinakaran as an accused in the charge-sheet filed in the trial court, which runs into several pages, the Delhi Police has affixed transcripts of conversations that allegedly took place between Dinakaran and the middlemen in the case.
These conversations centred on how Dinakaran was trying to usurp Jayalalithaa's legacy by trying to influence and corrupt the constitutionally empowered body, tasked to conduct free and fair elections, by activating a network of hawala operators in Delhi, Chennai and Kochi.
“There has been recovery of huge sums of money. Where did that come from? There is technical evidence in the case and the sequence of events establishes the conspiracy. We have filed a charge-sheet in the matter against the accused and it is pending trial in court at the moment,'' said Rajesh Deo, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), crime branch, handling the case.
In its charge-sheet filed before the trial court in Delhi, the crime branch of the Delhi Police has raised a bigger question. “The electoral process is the main pillar of a democratic institution and the accused, T.T.V. Dinakaran, along with other accused persons, not only tried to undermine the sanctity of the electoral process by attempting to corrupt the system but also wholeheartedly contributed towards weakening the economy of the nation by his illegal act of receiving unaccounted money through illegal channels of financial transaction.”
It has alleged that ''accused T.T.V. Dinakaran was promoting unaccounted channel for transferring of money, which was being used by other unscrupulous elements like terrorists/smugglers to transfer money to fund their illegal activities.”
The money being alluded to is an amount of Rs 50 crore, which is claimed to be part of the alleged criminal conspiracy hatched by Dinakaran to influence the EC officials.
The alleged telephonic transcripts show how money exchanged hands and was transferred by the key players of a pan-India hawala network, who were part of the murky deal.
But Malhotra, who got bail for Dinakaran and his close aide Mallikarjun, has accused the Delhi Police of “planting evidence” and using criminals to fabricate a case against Dinakaran for political reasons. Dinakaran and his aide were arrested on the night of April 25 but got bail in June.
“The court has directed the Delhi Police to share the CDs of the call records with all the accused. The next date of hearing is May 5, which is when we hope to get the CDRs. I want to ask the Delhi Police how did they get the CD? Who gave it to them? These are all political cases. Everything has been planted on Dinakaran including the theory of the hawala operators. The statements of some witnesses, like B. Kumar, have intentionally not been brought out. The only person in jail in this case is Sukesh who already has certain cases registered against him,'' Malhotra told THE WEEK.
Another conversation in possession of the Delhi Police talks about the Rs 50 crore exchanging hands at the behest of the expelled AIADMK leader. This conversation was between Chandrashekar and Mohan Raj, an alleged middleman.
Chandrashekar: Hello chief. Myself and Gopi sir are on the way to collect Rs 50 crore.
Mohan Raj: Is it?
Chandrashekar: Yes chief, and you have to collect Rs 25 lakh from Chennai.
Mohan Raj: Chief, no issue, I will collect it.
Chandrashekar: Collect the money and where is your Mercedes Benz car?
Mohan Raj: I don't know whether it is available right now.
Chandrashekar: Talk with the concerned person for the car and inform him that money will be given in one hour and get the car.
Mohan Raj: Okay.
Chandrashekar: Take the car and the package to Kochi, Kerala.
Mohan Raj: Okay.
Chandrashekar: Hey, I'm seriously talking on the issue, its not a joke!
Mohan Raj: Yes, yes! okay, I am coming.
Chandrashekar: You can call Gopi and ask what is happening since morning.
Mohan Raj: Okay, okay.
Chandrashekar: I have completed, got four weeks time.
Mohan Raj: Issue is coming on 17th right?
Chandrashekar: Four weeks time. Pramod Kumar, Election Commission, in charge for this particular issue. Oh my God! Dinakaran is not able to understand what is happening, he was baffled and happy. Only after that, he has confirmed to give the money and has given token number to collect the money.
Mohan Raj: Okay bro.
Chandrashekar: Myself and sir will go and get the cash.
During the course of investigation, the Delhi Police obtained the CCTV footage of Hotel Hyatt Regency at R.K. Puram in New Delhi, which established the presence of Sukesh Chandrashekar in the intervening night of April 15-16, 2017 in the hotel.
During further analysis of CCTV footage and call detail records of cellphone number of another hawala operator, Pulkit Kundra, the Delhi Police said that the latter came to Hyatt on April 15 and took Chandrashekar and Gopinath (an alleged associate of Dinakaran) to Chandni Chowk in his white Innova car to take delivery of money sent by Dinakaran.
“After taking delivery of money from Chandi Chowk, he dropped Sukesh and Gopinath to Hyatt Regency and also went in the room of accused Sukesh and took Rs 50 lakh out of the money received by Sukesh from Chandni Chowk,” the Delhi Police claimed.
On the intervening night of April 15-16, the crime branch of Delhi Police conducted a raid in room number 263 of Hotel Hyatt Regency after it got a tip-off of a conspiracy being hatched to influence the ECI for a favourable judgement regarding allotment of party election symbol of AIADMK (two leaves) and other related matters.
The charge-sheet alleged that it was Dinakaran's desperation to get the ''two leaves'' election symbol at any cost that prompted him to search for a ''suitable person'' to get the task done and he was ready to pay crores of rupees as bribes to anyone who would get his work done. The Delhi Police has claimed that it was at this juncture, Sukesh Chandrashekar was identified as the ''suitable person'' for this work by alleged associates of Dinakaran.
The evolution of the AIADMK symbol dispute
After the demise of J. Jayalalithaa, former chief minister and supreme leader of AIADMK, V.K. Sasikala was nominated unanimously as the general secretary of AIADMK on December 29, 2016
In the meantime, E. Madhusudhanan, O. Panneerselvam and S. Semmalai filed an application with ECI and challenged the nomination of Sasikala.
They also sought a direction for allotting the reserved election symbol of the AIADMK, 'two leaves', to their faction.
The AIADMK split after this—AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) faction having allegiance to E. Madhusudhanan, O. Panneerselvam and S. Semmalai and AIADMK (Amma) faction having allegiance to Sasikala and T.T.V. Dinakaran.
EC, in an interim order, allotted the temporary election symbols of 'electric pole' and 'hat' to the Panneerselvam and Dinakaran factions, respectively, and kept pending the decision on the permanent two leaves election symbol.
Both groups claimed rights over the permanent party election symbol of two leaves to prove that their respective faction is the 'original' AIADMK.