The urban local bodies poll in Tenkasi went off peacefully on Saturday.
Of the 440 wards in the district, election was held for the 413 wards in Sankarankovil, Puliyangudi, Kadayanallur, Tenkasi, Shencottai and Surandai municipalities and 17 town panchayats on Saturday as 27 candidates were elected unopposed from as many town panchayat wards. Electorate came to the 602 polling booths in the district right from the morning to cast their votes for electing their representatives from the 1,884 candidates in the fray.
Since 158 of the 603 booths were categorized as sensitive, webcasting was done from these booths till the end of the polling besides deploying micro observers and additional armed police personnel in these booths.
While polling for the town panchayat wards was brisk since morning, the voter turnout in the municipality wards was dull leaving the supporters of candidates to frantically bring voters to the booths, but it too went in vain.
District Collector S. Gopala Sundararaj visited good number of polling booths across the district. Led by Superintendent of Police R. Krishnaraj, over 2,000 police personnel had been deployed to ensure incident-free polling.
Kanniyakumari District Collector M. Aravind, who cast his vote in a booth at St. Antony’s Higher Secondary School, Kurusadi, said due security arrangements had been made in the 192 sensitive polling stations in the district as the voters were exercising their franchise in 1,324 booths to elect their representatives for 975 posts from 4,366 candidates contesting in Nagercoil Corporation, Kuzhithurai, Padmanabhapuram, Colachel and Kollencode municipalities and 51 town panchayats.
“We expect more than 75% polling this time,” Mr. Aravind said.
Former Union Minister Pon. Radhakrishnan, who exercised his franchise in a booth at Duthi Higher Secondary School, hoped the BJP would register historic and resounding victory in the urban civic polls despite the ruling DMK’s irregularities “such as bribing the voters”.
Polling got delayed for about 30 minutes in the booths at Vadaseri, Aralvaimozhi, Idaikodu, Pazhavilai, Karungal, Thuckalay, Marthandam, Puththalam, Villukuri and Eraniel following technical snag in the EVMs. After the technicians rectified the problems, polling started.
The votes polled will be counted at SLB Higher Secondary School (for Nagercoil Corporation wards), Vivekananda College, Agastheeswaram, Aringnar Anna College, Aralvaimozhi, Arts and Science College, Lakshmipuram, Government Higher Secondary School, Thuckalay, NVKST College, Aattur, Government Higher Secondary School, Kollencode and Nesamony Memorial Christian College, Marthandam.
