E-Paper
Tamil Nadu rural body polls record 74.37% voting in 1st phase
As per the state election commission, there are 200,551 voters eligible to vote in the first phase of Tamil Nadu local polls, which includes 407 transgender votes.
The first phase of the rural local body polls in Tamil Nadu’s nine newly carved districts progressed peacefully on Wednesday, barring a few stray incidents. The polls are being held to elect 78 district councillors, 755 union councillors, 1,577 village panchayat presidents, and 12,252 panchayat ward members.
Voting began at 7 am, and as of 6 pm, when polling closed, the voting percentage was 74.37% at the end of the day on Wednesday. The last one hour of voting was specifically reserved for Covid-19 patients, as was the case during assembly elections across five states held in April. The polls were held in the districts of--Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Vellore, Tirupathur, Ranipet, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, Tirunelveli and Tenkasi.
As per the state election commission, there are 200,551 voters eligible to vote in the first phase, which includes 407 transgender votes.
As many as 76,59,720 voters are eligible to vote across the two phases for 27,003 posts. The ruling DMK and the principal opposition, the AIADMK, are facing off in most seats while the Left parties who are part of the DMK-led alliance are contesting alone in several districts. The cracks are wider in the AIADMK alliance as PMK is contesting on its own in all nine districts while the BJP is contesting alone in the Kallakurichi district. The PMK, a Vanniyar-caste-based party, which has a stronghold in seven of the nine districts is likely to affect the AIADMK’s performance. “If these elections are free, fair and democratic, the AIADMK would see a huge win,” said AIADMK’s spokesperson and former minister, D Jayakumar. Tamil nationalist S Seeman’s Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK), which came third in the assembly elections, fielded candidates in the maximum number of seats.
“The reports that we are receiving from the locals and district party officer bearers is that people are happy with DMK’s performance, so they are likely to vote for the ruling party,” said DMK Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson TKS Elangovan.
In Ranipet district, local cadres of the DMK and AIADMK got into a scuffle with the latter accusing the ruling party of flouting norms by campaigning near the polling booth but were dispersed by the police. There was also heavy security in the southern districts, such as in Tirunelveli, which is known to be communally sensitive. “Polling went on peacefully. We didn’t get any reports of violence,” state election commissioner V Palanikumar told reporters in Chennai on Wednesday. “All the 3,000-sensitive polling stations are being watched via videos and CCTVs have been installed as per the order of the Madras high court,” he added.
Police said that there were no untoward incidents. “Since there was a law-and-order issue last month in Tirunelveli, we had one of the highest securities here with more than 2,400 police officers on the ground,” said N Manivannan, superintendent of police, Tirunelveli.
The AIADMK had filed a petition seeking free and fair polls following which a bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu had directed the state government last week to use technology for electronic surveillance.
As many as 3,409 booths across the nine districts have been identified as sensitive by collectors, police and the election body. The polling process was video graphed and live-streamed from 1,132 booths and 12,318 have CCTVs.
The second phase will be held on October 9 and results will be announced on October 12.
