LS polls: Crowd surges at Chennai airport, ticket fare doubles as people return to hometown for voting
Passenger traffic at the Chennai domestic airport has increased as many residents from Chennai and its suburbs take flights to go to their hometowns to cast their votes.
Mad rush at Tambaram railway station to board the special operated in view of polls and Flyers thronging airport in Chennai on Thursday
CHENNAI: The footfall in the Chennai airport and the Tambaram railway station was much higher on Thursday since the people started to travel to their native to cast their votes on Friday.
The Lok Sabha elections in Tamil Nadu are scheduled on Friday and to make sure everyone is voting the private firms announced a holiday for the voters. Because of that from Thursday onwards the people started to travel to their native places.
The Chennai airport was overcrowded on Thursday as many turned up to the airport since most of the trains and buses were already full and also they could reach their homes sooner and spend more time with their families during the weekend.
However, the flight ticket fare was doubled due to the last-minute rush.
Usually, the flight ticket to Toothukudi would be around Rs 4000 but it was increased to Rs 8,297, for Madurai it was Rs 3,600 but was increased to Rs 8,555, for Trichy it was Rs 2,382 but was increased to Rs 6,344, for Coimbatore usually it was Rs 3,342 but now it is increased to Rs 7,881.
However, most of the passengers were not concerned about the price hike and were booking the tickets since only a few seats were left on all the flights.
The passengers demanded that AAI should have operated more flights so that people could travel easily to cast their votes.
The Tambaram railway station was also flooded with train commuters since thousands of people were moving out of the city to cast their votes in their native villages.
The Southern Railway operated a special train from Tambaram railway station to Kanniyakumari via Villupuram, Trichy, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Tirunelveli, and Nagercoil.
The train departed from the Tambaram Railway station at 4.30 pm and there were a total of 23 coaches 19 of the coaches were allocated for unreserved but all the coaches got filled quickly and most of the people were travelling by standing.
The other trains especially to southern districts of the state also running full.