CHENNAI: People in the backward R K Nagar constituency in north Chennai stepped out of their homes in droves and reached polling stations on Thursday to voice their opinion on who should succeed late chief minister J Jayalalithaa as their representative in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
A record 77.68 per cent of the 2.28 lakh electorate exercised their franchise in the high-stakes by-election that is crucial for the AIADMK now led by chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam and rebel leader TTV Dhinakaran who has entered the fray as an independent candidate. In 2016 assembly elections, the constituency had recorded 67.69 per cent polling.
The by-election is the first acid test for Palaniswami and Panneerselvam since this is the first poll that they are facing after the demise of charismatic AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa. AIADMK’s E.Madhusudhanan, DMK nominee N Marudhu Ganesh, rebel Dhinakaran and BJP’s Karu Nagarajan are prominent among the 59 candidates who contested the elections.
As usual, women outnumbered men in coming out in droves and exercising their democratic rights by waiting for hours together at the polling stations, braving the afternoon heat. Long queues were witnessed at almost all 258 polling stations since morning and people waited patiently for their turn to cast their vote in the EVMs.
Though there were incidents of EVM malfunction in a few booths, they were rectified almost immediately and the icing on the cake was that the day-long polling went off peacefully.
The bypoll, whose votes will be counted on Sunday, had its fair share of controversies with allegations of ‘cash for votes’.
Though the Election Commission seized only a little more than Rs 30 lakh in cash, the going rate this time for a vote was Rs 6,000 – which means tens of crores of rupees would have been spent in distribution alone.
