The Crime Branch of Delhi Police on Monday booked the AIADMK (Amma) deputy general secretary T T V Dhinakaran for allegedly seeking to bribe Election Commission officials to secure the party's original

"two leaves" election symbol in the now-scrapped 12 April bye-election to the R K Nagar Assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu.

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The police filed an FIR against Dhinakaran after arresting an alleged middleman Sukesh Chandrasekhar  

from a five-star hotel in the national capital on Sunday. The FIR has been filed against the accused under Section 8 of Prevention of Corruption Act, and Section 170 (personating a public servant) and Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code.

The police are investigating Chandrasekhar's links with Dhinakaran and EC officials. They have recovered Rs 1.30 crore from Sukesh besides seizing two luxury cars ~ a Mercedes and a BMW ~ from his possession.

According to police, Sukesh had allegedly struck a deal of Rs 50 crore for securing the AIADMK's original election symbol for Dhinakaran.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Madhur Verma said Sukesh was arrested on the basis of a

"secret information". "Both the luxury cars seized were parked at the five star hotel and all the notes recovered from him were in the denomination of 2000 rupees," Verma said.

Dhinakaran is a leader of the AIADMK faction led by his aunt V K Sasikala, the party general secretary, who has been currently in a Bengaluru jail after being convicted in a corruption case.

Reacting to the FIR filed against him by Delhi Police, Dhinakaran, in Chennai, rejected the allegations against him as false, claiming that he has no links with Sukesh Chandrasekhar. Holding that he will fight the case legally, he charged that attempts were being made to "destroy" his organisation "politically".

Dhinakaran claimed he was clueless about Sukesh, claiming that he had never known anybody with that name.

A Delhi Police team may visit Chennai to question Dhinakaran who, on his part, said he was ready to respond to any police summons. Dhinakaran would be served notice to join the police probe.

A special Delhi Police team comprising officials of the inter-state cell of Crime Branch has been formed by Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Praveer Ranjan to investigate the case.

In the run-up to the 12 April R K Nagar bypoll ~ which was necessitated following the death of the then Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa on 5 December ~ the EC froze the AIADMK's poll symbol "two leaves" after the two party factions, one led by Sasikala and another led by her rival and ex-CM O Panneerselvam, staked their respective claims on it.

Subsequently, the EC also cancelled the R K Nagar bypoll, saying that the election process there had been "seriously vitiated" by parties and candidates through bribery and use of money and gifts to allure voters. Dhinakaran was also the candidate of the Sasikala faction in this bypoll.

The Sasikala camp had managed to get their affiliated leader K Palaniswami's government installed in Tamil Nadu in the face of a fierce challenge from the Panneerselvam faction.