Part of bribe cash in Manjeshwar poll fray case found

Kasaragod: Police have found a part of the alleged bribe the BJP had allegedly paid a candidate in the Manjeshwar Assembly constituency to make him withdraw from the fray.

The Bahujan Samajwadi Party candidate, K Sundara, had handed over Rs 1 lakh to a friend for safekeeping. The friend had deposited the amount in a bank, and the investigators have now collected relevant documents to recover the money.

Sundara, who had withdrawn from the contest, earlier revealed that the BJP paid him Rs 2.5 lakh and a Rs 15,000 mobile phone. He was also offered a wine parlour and residence in Karnataka if BJP won the constituency.

BJP State president K Surendran had an unsuccessful run to the State Assembly from Manjeshwar.

The crime branch, which confiscated the phone, found that the handset was priced at Rs 9,000. Though the hard disk of the CCTV at the mobile phone showroom was taken into custody, it had a memory to store visuals for 30 days. The phone was purchased on March 22.

The police had on Monday registered a case against Surendran for allegedly threatening and bribing Sundara for withdrawing his nomination as a candidate in the Manjeswaram Assembly constituency in the April 6 state Assembly elections.

The case was registered as per the directions of a magistrate court which considered a petition filed by V V Ramesan, the CPI(M) candidate who fought the election against Surendran in Manjeswaram, police said.

The case was filed under sections 171 (B) and (E) (Bribery) of the IPC.

The BJP has dismissed all allegations and termed it as a conspiracy against the party.

Sundara, a Yakshagana artiste, had contested in 2016 but had withdrawn in 2021 in order to pave the win of Surendran.

IUML's A K M Ashraf won the seat with 65,758 votes, while Surendran managed to bag 65,013 votes.

V V Ramesan got 40,639 votes.

Sundara had secured 467 votes in the 2016 election in which Surendran lost to the UDF candidate by 89 votes from Manjeswaram.