With appeal to voters, CEO tries to keep ‘100 percent voting’ alive

With the last leg of Assembly by-elections drawing to a close today, Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo has urged the voters to exercise their franchise without any fear.

“All eligible people should come forward and vote. All the polling stations are ready for the last phase of Assembly bypolls,” Sahoo said.

The CEO made late night enquiries with district election officers and police officials to ensure that there were no untoward incidents and disturbance caused to the voters in Sulur, Aravakurichi, Ottapidaram and Tiruparankundram Assembly constituencies.

According to the CEO, a total of 137 candidates are in fray in these four Assembly constituencies. In Aravakurichi, four EVM machines will be used at each polling station as there are 63 candidates. A total of 15,939 police personnel has been deployed to maintain law and order in all the poll-bound areas.

Meanwhile, senior government officials on poll duty said all arrangements are in place for the polling today, adding that there were no chances of violence.

Confirming that outsiders in the poll-bound constituencies have been moved out of the districts, a senior official said, “Though there were complaints related to violation of model code of conduct, particularly bribery of voters, the April 18 Lok Sabha elections and Assembly bypolls in TN were peaceful. Enhanced security arrangements are in place for free and fair elections today.”

He said a preliminary meeting in connection with the counting of EVMs was conducted on Friday and another review is likely before the counting.

While the bypolls to 18 Assembly seats were held along with Lok Sabha polls on April 18, the elections to the remaining four Assembly seats are scheduled along with the last phase of Lok Sabha polls today.

Of the four seats, two became vacant due to the demise of AIADMK MLAs A K Bose (Tiruparankundram) and R Kanakaraj (Sulur). The other two were also represented by the AIADMK members, but House Speaker P Dhanapal disqualified its sitting MLA for rebelling against CM Edappadi K Palaniswami. As a result, Aravakurichi represented by Senthil Balaji and Ottapidaram represented by R Sundarraj also became vacant.

The outcome of bypolls to a total of 22 seats will decide the future of the AIADMK government as the two-year-old Palaniswami government is sitting on a wafer-thin majority in the House, which has a total of 234 seats. The AIADMK has a strength of 113 MLAs, while the simple majority mark stands at 117.