Chennai: Polling for bye-elections to two Tamil
Nadu assembly constituencies today was by and large peaceful
with heavy polling reported in both segments.
About 82 per cent polling was reported in the Vandavasi
(SC) constituency and 78 per cent in Tiruchendur, Chief
Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta told reporters here.
Police sources said polling was by and large peaceful with
people turning up in large numbers to exercise their
franchise. Besides state police, paramilitary forces had also
been deployed especially in sensitive booths, to ensure
peaceful election, they added.
"No untoward incidents were reported", they said.
The by-polls were necessitated by the death of DMK MLA
S C 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 arch
rivals 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 the 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 CEO.
PTI
