Chennai/ Imphal: Polling for by-elections to two Tamil Nadu Assembly and Manipur constituencies began this morning amidst tight security.
Polling was peaceful with people queueing up at the booths in Vandavasi (SC) and Tiruchendur where the by-polls are being held, police said.
Besides state police, paramilitary forces have also been deployed, especially in sensitive booths, to ensure peaceful polling, officials said.
The by-polls were necessitated by the death of DMK MLA SC Jayaraman at Vandavasi and resignation of former AIADMK MLA Anitha R Radhakrishnan at Tiruchendur.
The counting will be held on December 23.
After the Lok Sabha polls, this is the first time archrivals DMK and AIADMK are on the electoral battle turf as the latter had boycotted bypolls to five Assembly seats in August. Actor-politician Vijayakant's DMDK is also in fray.
The Election Commission, for the first time in the state, has taken measures to capture on web cameras, images of all voters at the time of polling which will be compared with their images available in the central server’s database of electoral photo rolls to quickly act on any possible discrepancy.
The comparison will be done at a control room at the office of Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta.
Voting begins in Manipur Assembly constituency
Voting began today in Yaiskul Assembly constituency of Imphal East district amidst tight security.
Voting started at 7 am and would end at 3 pm.
About 23,499 voters, including 12,703 women, are expected to exercise their franchise to elect their representatives from the constituency where four candidates, E Suraj (Congress), H Jayadev (independent), S Rajen (Janata Dal Secular) and A Jagadish (independent), are in the fray.
By-elections were necessitated due to the death of Congress MLA E Kunjeshore, father of E Suraj, four months ago.
Central para military forces, including BSF and CRPF, have been deployed at all the 28 polling stations, including nine hyper sensitive, in view of the threat of militant outfits, sources said.
Every voter, particularly at certain polling stations, including Wangkhei Boys Junior High School in the heart of Imphal town, is being checked with metal detectors.
Counting of votes would be taken up on December 23.
PTI
First Published: Saturday, December 19, 2009, 10:39