With an electorate that has grown by over four lakh voters in the last five years, the Madurai Parliamentary constituency, spread across six Assembly segments, is gearing up to face the 16 Lok Sabha Elections. The present electorate includes over 60,000 young voters who are gearing up to cast their votes for the first time.
The Madurai constituency consists of Melur, Madurai East, Madurai North, Madurai South, Madurai West and Madurai Central.
It may be recalled that the constituency recorded an impressive polling rate of 77.43 per cent in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Of the electorate which comprised 10,22,421 voters, as many as 7,91,234 valid votes had been cast.
The votes had been cast across 1,143 polling stations where each polling station recorded an average of 895 votes.
With an addition of 325 polling booths this year, which has taken the total number of booths to 1,468, a total of 14,39,782 voters will cast their votes on the D-day across the constituency.
The Melur Assembly segment, which covers over 80 villages, has been the centre of attention among the candidates who are contesting the elections this year since past elections have shown that the segment has recorded a large number of people casting their votes.
Despite the segment having a vote bank of a little over 2.28 lakh voters this year, which is less than the number of voters in Madurai West, Madurai Central and Madurai North segments, Melur segment is sure to play a role in contributing to the winning votes for a candidate.
It may be recalled that 1.35 lakh votes were cast from the segment which was the highest after the Madurai east segment during the 2009 elections.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) candidate M.K. Alagiri, who won the 2009 elections, received 83,046 votes from Melur — the highest number of votes recorded in his favour from an assembly segment.
As had been the case in the last elections, the Madurai East Assembly segment continues to hold the largest number of voters with more than 2.69 lakh voters gearing up to exercise their franchise on April 24.
The segment also recorded the largest number of votes polled during the previous elections with over 1.47 lakh valid votes.
This large segment encompasses areas on the outskirts of the city such as Othakadai, Kallandiri, Veerapandi, Tirumohur, Angadimangalam, Kannanendal, Naganakulam and Vandiyur.
