One more polling station, which forms part of Puliyampatti in Sankarankoil Assembly constituency of Tirunelveli district,is set for re-polling on Saturday along with seven others spread across five Assembly constituencies.
Announcing this, Praveen Kumar, Chief Electoral Officer, told a press conference that the re-poll in Puliyampatti had been ordered as polling agents had vitiated the atmosphere and violated the secrecy of voting by helping some electors to cast their votes. This had been captured by web-cameras.
Asked whether this rule would be applied in the case of a polling booth in Thousand Lights constituency where voter and actor Rajinikanth was said to have been shown by television channels, casting his vote in favour of a party, the CEO replied that in response to such reports, he had collected information, which had been sent to the Election Commission, though no official had seen the visual. The observer concerned had cleared the polling process in the station, he added.
To another question whether the Commission would order re-poll in constituencies which had seen unusually high turnout, Mr. Praveen Kumar replied that the rule was that constituencies where polling was less or more by 15 per cent than the State average, would be studied by election observers. Any decision on the re-poll would be based on the recommendation of the observers. He added that the State average of voter turnout was 78.12 per cent.
