Digging up dirt can help some hit pay dirt

In the past, rival factions or parties opposing each oth er would dig up dirt on leaders for use during campaigning. But with the scope for hanky-panky increasing at the same time as sources of information become more accessible, professional politicos are becoming consultants who will do this job for a fee.
Now that parties are announcing candidates for seats, these poll-eve consultants prowl social media, leverage publicly available data, and use RTI to dig up past cases of wrongdoing by candidates.Such information can be worth its memory size in gold. “This is the time we can earn quick money,“ says a politician and activist of T Nagar on condition of anonymity. He says he earned more than `15 lakh after the AIADMK candidates' first list was released by the party high command on April 4.
Rivals who were peeved over not getting tickets sent their men to him to find out cases of wrongdoing by those given tickets so they could use them to complain to the high command.
The information is apparently sent anonymously through regular post or fax.AIADMK sources say that since the release of the list the party leadership has carried out 18 changes, largely because of these complaints.
Some, however, say it is not always for the money that they do this but out of a sense of public interest. Apparently a month ago, M Babu, an activist in Vellore, approached the public information officer (PIO) of the cooperative subregistrar K Jaganayagi, seeking information about the status of a money swindling case in the Vellore-Tiruvannamalai District Milk Producers Cooperative Union reported in 1994.
The Rs 1.37 crore cheating case slapped on P Neelakandan, who has been named as the AIADMK candidate of Vellore constituency, and a few others in 1994 is pending before a second judicial magistrate court in Vellore till now. Babu says he has been circulating this information in public interest to raise the awareness of voters.
It would seem that in the digital age rivals are lurking in cyberspace so they can trip leaders. Recently, Whatsapp images of former state minister B V Ramana with a woman are said to have ensured that he was sidelined by the party. Ramana is one of the many ministers who didn't get a ticket.
Likewise, the alleged phone conversation of Tuticorin mayor Sasikala has created a ripple on Whatsapp.