The stage is set for the election to the Tirupparankundram Assembly constituency on Saturday, November 19. Polling will start at 7 a.m. and end by 5 p.m.
A total of 28 candidates are in the fray and the constituency has 2,85,980 voters — 1,42,329 men, 1,43,629 women and 22 others.
In all, 1,396 staffs have been assigned the task of conducting the poll, ably assisted by a little over 300 micro-observers, 1,600 police personnel and five companies of central forces. Apart from field staffs and police, senior officers are closely monitoring the progress.
From the afternoon of Thursday, officials led by Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao, Election Commission-appointed observers U. V. Jose and Amit Pratap Singh, Commissioner of Police Shailesh Kumar Yadav, Superintendent of Police Vijayendra S Bidari supervised the allocation of polling staff for the respective stations through randomisation, movement of poll materials from the Armed Reserve Police Grounds and the posting of micro-observers.
The officials also held several rounds of discussions and reviewed the security arrangements. Apart from the deployment of police, additional strength had been posted in vulnerable and critical pockets, the Collector said and added that the polling staff, who were undergoing training at Velammal Engineering College, would get their postings by Friday.
Rallies by parties
With the campaign coming to close by 5 p.m., political parties took out rallies in the constituency. The DMK, AIADMK, BJP and DMDK cadres were seen criss-crossing in their vehicles from as early as 9 a.m. in different parts of the constituency.
DMDK leader Premalatha spoke at a couple of locations seeking support for her candidate Dhanapandian. At least 10 ministers, equal number of MPs and MLAs campaigned for the AIADMK candidate A.K. Bose, while for the DMK candidate P. Saravanan senior functionaries and MLAs led by I. Periasami campaigned on the final day.
