Chennai: Jayalalithaa’s RK Nagar constituency was politically active on the polling day and the voters seem to convey something loud and clear on the D-day surpassing the previous poll percentages in the recent history of RK Nagar elections. Women out numbered men in the polling booths and serpentine queues failed to die until the poll officials locked the gates of polling stations.
For those who were waiting in the queue the poll officials distributed tokens. Tokens were given in about 60 polling booths of the total 258 polling booths.
According to corporation commissioner and district election officer D. Karthickeyan as many as 92862 women electors voted recording a 79.21 percent polling surpassing men poll percentage of 75.92 percent. The crowd particularly the women waited for more than two hours and this was visible through out the labour dominated constituency, particularly in the pockets where fishing hamlets were located. The polling station near Kasimedu saw women with their kids spending close to three hours to get their fingers inked.
Young mother with her newborn baby at Tondiarpet polling booth. (Photo: DC)
“After seining the crowd, I thought it will take about an hour but the machine was slow and it took two hours for me to vote”, said Ms. Sasi Dhinakaran, a resident of Cemetry road in old Washermenpet.
Another interesting factor was participation of burqua clad muslim women voters in Tondiarpet and Chezhian Nagar.
“I am a fan of late Amma Jayalalithaa and thought of not voting this time, but my family members wanted to vote this time so I joined them”, said Ms Jameela a resident of Tondiarpet.
Heavyweights missing on D-Day
Majority of the DMK functionaries and AIADMK heavy weights were absent on the day of polling. Chennai has ten DMK MLAs and five AIADMK MLAs, but they were not visible on the field. “There are MLAs and MPs involved in the booth monitoring work and it’s a good they are not visiting the booths and some of them have also availed polling agent passes from election commission. May be they are confident of winning without involving in any poll violence”, a senior police official in charge of eight polling booths told DC. Interestingly the DMK strongman and harbour MLA P K Sekar Babu, TTV supporter P Vettrivel (former RK Nagar MLA) and AIADMK candidate E Madhusudhanan usually known for frequenting the polling booths remained indoors bring respite to the polling officials.
