Chennai: The voting in the city which started briskly, slowed down in the afternoon despite a pleasant climate with cloudy sky and slight drizzle, a welcome relief from the sweltering heat for the last one month.
There were serpentine queues in most of the booths in the morning as committed voters turned up with the idea of voting before the weather gets hot.
Most of the voters who turned up early were middle aged and elders, besides women. By 10 in the morning, slight drizzles started in the city, but the voting slowed down in most of the booths.
In Saidapet, people thronged the booths from early morning and there was no slackness even in the afternoon. In both the corporation schools, one at Jafferkhanpet and the other in West Saidapet witnessed busy polling.
People from the poor and middle classes eagerly turned up for voting, waited in long queues patiently and exercised their franchise. Senior citizens came to the booths eagerly and waited in the booths for their turn. While some of the booths had very long queues, there were a few booths, which were nearly empty throughout the day.
People waiting in long queues were complaining that the booth-wise distribution of voters was not even and the number of voters in some booths were high leading to long queues.
Kannamma, a voter in Saidapet, said, “I came to the booth at around 7.30 am, but was able to vote only at around 9 am due to the long queue. However, in the nearby booth, people came every five minutes, entered immediately and completed voting. Most of the time, the booth was empty and the officials were waiting for voters. At least two EVMs should have been kept at booths with more number of voters”.
There were power cuts in some areas for a few minutes leading to break in polling and people had to wait for more time. The polling was peaceful, barring few complaints of malfunctioning of EVMs in some areas, but they were set right quickly.
