Makkal Needhi Maiam chief Kamal Haasan and his daughter Shruti Haasan were among hundreds of voters who had to wait at a polling station in Tamil Nadu’s Chennai on Thursday before they could cast their votes after a technical glitch in the EVMs delayed polling.
Kamal Hassan, the actor-turned-politician, and others had queued up outside polling station 27 at Alwarpet Corporation School in Chennai to cast their votes. They had to wait for nearly half an hour before the polling started at the booth after the electronic voting machine was fixed.
Voting in other polling booths in Tamil Nadu was also delayed owing to technical problems with EVMs.
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There was also report of an EVM not working at Periyakulam in Theni district of the state where deputy chief minister and AIADMK co-ordinator O Panneerselvam was to cast his vote. In the Kanniyakumari parliamentary constituency, voters had to wait in several booths for nearly an hour to cast their votes.
Otherwise, brisk polling was witnessed across the state with political leaders and movie stars casting their votes soon after polling for the 38 Lok Sabha seats and 18 assembly constituencies began at 7am.
{{/usCountry}}Otherwise, brisk polling was witnessed across the state with political leaders and movie stars casting their votes soon after polling for the 38 Lok Sabha seats and 18 assembly constituencies began at 7am.
{{/usCountry}}Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswami, Congress leader P Chidambaram, actor-politician Rajinikanth, the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit president Tamilisai Soundararajan and actors Ajith and Vijay were among others who cast their votes.
Tamil Nadu is polling in a single phase on Thursday in the staggered Lok Sabha election 2019. About 5.8 crore voters will decide the fate of 822 candidates in the Lok Sabha polls and 269 in the assembly by-polls.
Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Manipur are also voting on Thursday. Along with the Lok Sabha election, Odisha will also vote for 35 assembly seats on Thursday.
The polling was scheduled to be held in 97 seats but polling in Vellore (Tamil Nadu) and Tripura East constituencies was cancelled by the Election Commission of India.
Votes will be counted on May 23.