Incident-free polling in Theni and Dindigul districts

Brisk polling was reported in many areas

An election official helps an aged woman to wear gloves before she casts her vote at a booth near Chettinaikenpatti in Dindigul on Saturday.

Polling for the casual election to the rural civic body held in the district was incident-free, said District Collector K. V. Muralidharan on Saturday.

The Collector, who inspected a few of the polling stations, told reporters that the polling was largely peaceful. Brisk polling was reported in many of the stations. For the benefit of the voters, the government had declared a public holiday. For maintenance of law and order, the TASMAC outlets in the election areas were closed.

From 7 a.m., the polling commenced on a brisk note and a glance at the polling percentage released every two hours showed that the electorate were eager to cast their votes. With an hour to end for polling, at 5 p.m., 64.05 % votes had been cast.

In many polling stations, the Collector had to appeal and remind the public to wear their masks properly. In Mayildampurai polling station, the Collector personally distributed masks and urged them to maintain physical distance in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. While vaccination drive was on, he said that the protocol had to be strictly adhered to.

In a couple of stations, Mr Muralidharan repeatedly pointed out the consequences of neglecting the SOP issued for COVID-19 and the officials were pulled up for not sensitising the voters.

DINDIGUL

Dindigul Collector S. Visakan said that Nilakottai polled 79.7 % votes as on 5 p.m. while in Kodaikanal 53.7 % votes were polled polled.

The polling had to be suspended for about 20 minutes at the MVM Girls Higher Secondary School polling station in Chettinaickenpatti as there were some technical reasons in the two wards. Block Development Officer Malaravan and team attended to it and the polling resumed.

As voters were given different colour slip to cast their votes manually by affixing seal for different posts, there was a delay. As a result, long queues were witnessed in many polling stations since 11 a.m.

Critical and sensitive polling stations were identified and police personnel were deployed. Senior officers said that there was no law and order issues.

For a total of 28 posts in the rural local body in the district, 15 were elected unopposed after withdrawal of nominations, while polling had to be conducted for 13 different posts, officials said.

The counting of votes would be conducted in nine places and the Collector inspected the counting centres accompanied by the police later in the evening. All boxes from various polling stations reached the respective counting centres by late night amidst tight security.