Chennai, Nov. 9 -- The political row over book purchases for Coimbatore's Periyar Arivalayam escalated on Monday with DMK spokesperson TKS Elangovan alleging that the BJP had "elected" Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay through "unlawful" means, as he dismissed corruption allegations against the DMK.

Speaking to ANI, Elangovan claimed Vijay came to power "by EVM fraud and SIR, not by popular votes", alleging that the BJP had asked the TVK government to attack the DMK, and that the TVK was doing so "sincerely" to protect Vijay from the BJP.

"After this government came to power, they wanted to mint money. So what they did was, in Periyar Arivulagam, they purchased books at a higher cost, and they wanted to accuse the DMK of that. DM...