Dull polling in Chennai

Chennai: A poor turnout of 72.09 per cent voters, with some late comers waiting in the booths after the closing time of 7 pm, marked an otherwise peaceful polling, marred by a series of boycotts of the election and skirmishes over missing names in the electoral lists, in Tamil Nadu, where elections were held for all the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies on Friday, along with the by-election for the Vilavancode Assembly constituency.

The three constituencies in Chennai were in the bottom five of the list – Chennai Central 67.35 %, Chennai South 57.25 % and Chennai North 69.26 % - while Kallakurichi recorded the highest of 75.67 % and Dharmapuri that was on the top since polling started at 7 am closed second highest at 755.44 %. Madurai recorded 68.90.

Governor R N Ravi, along with his wife, cast his vote at a booth in Velachery behind the Raj Bhavan premises and Chief Minister M K Stalin and his family members walked from their home in Chittaranjan Road to the booth in SIET College to exercise their franchise, while top political leaders and film actors voted in various booths in Chennai and in other places.

Coming out of his polling booth, Stalin told the media that he had exercised his democratic duty and wanted everyone to do so. Asked about the victory prospects, he said the INDIA coalition would romp home in the elections.

On the low turnout despite an aggressive campaign carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to achieve 100 per cent voting, Chief Election Commissioner, Satyabrata Sahoo, who spearheaded the campaign in the State, said that the percentage was slightly higher than the previous Lok Saha elections and the extreme heat was one among the reasons for people staying at home.

Three voters died, possibly due to the extreme heat, at their booths. In Salem’s Sentharapatti, 77-year-old Chinnaponnu fainted after reaching her booth and breathed her last, while 70-year-old Palanisami died in Suramangalam in Salem while waiting in the queue to vote and 71-year-old Kanagaraj collapsed at a booth near Tiruttani.

Among the incidents that hindered polling for some time were the Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) candidate of Central Chennai, Karthikeyan, kicking up a ruckus at a booth near Pallavan Illam complaining of the light in the EVM’s panel not glowing. When election officials clarified that all was well with the EVM, he tried to stage a dharna but was evicted from the premises.

In Koundampalayam, falling under Coimbatore constituency, a kerfuffle was witnessed at a booth when the names of 830 voters from the Post and Telegraph Colony were missing in the list. The prominent candidate of the constituency, K Annamalai of the BJP, and other BJP leaders like Vanathi Srinivasan rushed to the spot to sort out the matter.

At Vinmangalam in Tirupattur, polling was stopped at a booth after the VVPAT equipment conked out and voters raised an objection to it. Authorities worked on the fault and set it right immediately to facilitate the resumption of polling.

Among the other booths where such complaints of names missing in voters’ list were raised were Mylapore Basha Thottam (300 names) and Saidapet V S Mudali Street (500 names). When Sahoo was asked about the complaints of missing names, he said that several opportunities were given to the voters to check if their names were in the list and added that he would inquire into it.

Apart from film actors like Ajith, who turned up as the first voter at his booth in Thiruvanmiyur and Vijay casting his vote under the glare of media limelight, the celebrities who voted at various places in Chennai were Rajinikanth at Stella Maris College, Kamal Hassan at Eldams Road and Seeman at Neelangarai.

Satyabrata Sahoo voted at a booth in Nerkundram, while DMDK general secretary Premalatha, along with her son Vijay Prabakaran, who is contesting from Virudhunagar constituency, bumped into BJP candidate from South Chennai Tamilisai Soundararajan at a booth in Saligramam. Both of them greeted each other and exchanged pleasantries.

Vijay Prabakaran’s electoral rival Radhika Sarathkumar and her husband Sarathkumar voted at Kottivakkam and the Congress candidate for Virudhunagar, Manickam Tagore, voted in Madurai. AIADMK general secretary Edapaddi K Palaniswami voted at Siluvampalayam in Salem, his bete noire O Panneerselvam at Periyakulam, P Chidambaram at Sivaganga and Annamalai at Uthupatti in Karur.

Ousted AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala, who voted at SIET College, told the waiting media that the results of the Lok Sabha elections would lead to the those who made mistakes to correct themselves, and her nephew T T V Dinakaran, contesting the polls from Theni, after casting his vote at a booth in Besant Nagar, said that he and his supporters were also followers to J Jayalalithaa.