On Sunday, 200m away from a polling centre in Somanur, AIADMK cadre set up a counter to help voters identify their names in the electoral list.
Among the group of men and women, a few held cardboard models of electronic voting machines with ‘Ballot Unit 1’ written on the top right corner. On the top left it was mentioned ‘ready’ with a green dot. Beneath it were rows, and against each row was a red dot, followed by a button that resembled the one that voters press on EVMs to choose the candidate.
In the first row, the AIADMK cadre pasted a slip mentioning the name of their candidate P. Kandasamy in Tamil with his photograph and the party’s ‘two leaves’ symbol. Against it was a red button, which when pressed switched on an LED light.
Informing the voters
When asked about the surrogate campaigning, R. Govindaraj, AIADMK deputy town secretary, Karumathampatti, contended that the party cadre in Somanur made the EVM models to inform voters about where to find their party and candidate name on the EVMs and passively suggest that they vote for the AIADMK.
“The AIADMK cadre came up with the EVM models to also make it easy for the rural and unlettered voters to vote,” he added.
Not to be left behind, the DMK cadre in the textile town came up with something similar.
On similar track
On a placard, they printed an image of the EVM and in the second row, they printed party candidate Pongalur N. Palanisamy’s name in Tamil, followed by the ‘rising sun’ symbol and a red dot to suggest that voters vote for the DMK.
Senior functionary of the party, T.R. Shanmugasundaram’s reasoning was similar to what the AIADMK cadre said — the purpose was to educate voters and to make it easy for them to locate the DMK symbol.
