It was nothing short of a harrowing experience for voters at Koodal Nagar, on a day which will indeed decide the next five years of civic management in their locale.
They had to wade through a pool of water to cast their votes.
The voters of all ages who came to cast their votes during the first phase of local body polls on Monday at the St. Antony's Middle School polling booth in Koodal Nagar suffered a lot owing to water logging, and almost all of them had to wade through stagnant water (in a few places, it was running) to reach the polling station. The recent rains inundated almost all the neighbourhoods in the Koodal Nagar area throwing life out of gear in many places.
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Braving the odds of more than knee-deep water, a middle-aged blind couple came forward to cast their votes; they were guided by a youngster to the polling booth and were also brought back. An elderly person who came driving a moped along with his granddaughter was unable to gauge the depth of the puddle slipped and got stuck.
Most of the residents of Krishnasamy Street, Chokkalinga Nagar first, second, third and fourth streets stayed home in the morning and came out to cast their votes during the afternoon as they found the knee-deep water difficult to wade through, said Ravi (49), a resident of Chokkalinga Nagar Third Street.
This resulted in a very dull turnout. Even though one could find the contesting candidates use share autorickshaws and other vehicles to bring voters, still it was a daunting task to reach the polling booths.
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Koodal Nagar, which comes under the Madurai West Assembly segment, has been facing this problem for quite sometime. It has almost become a regular feature to find places such as Appadurai Nagar near Koodal Nagar waterlogged. Several residents there said that the channel near the residential area had not been desilted for years, the reason for waterlogging.