Voting ends in Erode East bypoll, over 70% turnout recorded
The polling was held from 7 am to 6 pm and during afternoon the voting was sluggish.
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ERODE: The Erode (East) constituency recorded more than 70 per cent turnout in bypolls by 6 pm on Wednesday. Polling was by and large peaceful across the 237 polling stations, barring some stray incidents.
Voters' turnout remained steady since 7 am when polling commenced and recorded 10.95 per cent at 9 am, 26.03 per cent at 11 am, 42.41 per cent at 1 pm 53.63 per cent at 3 pm, 64.02 per cent at 5 pm and over 70 per cent at 6 pm.
In the last bypolls, the Erode assembly constituency recorded 74.79 per cent of votes and 69.58 per cent in the 2021 assembly elections.
People turned up enthusiastically at the polling stations to cast their votes in the bypoll to the Erode East segment and those who were in the queue at the closing time were issued tokens and allowed to vote, officials told PTI. The polling was held from 7 am to 6 pm and during afternoon the voting was sluggish.
The allegation of a woman voter that someone impersonated her and hence, she could not vote and the allegations and counter-allegations of the ruling DMK and Naam Tamizhar Katchi caught attention, and they briefly resorted to road roko, leading to anxious moments.
District Collector and District Election Officer, Raja Gopal Sunkara said, adding till 1 pm, 42.41 per cent of polling was recorded in 237 polling booths and official sources said the percentage crossed 50 per cent later.
Three EVMs were used as 46 candidates, including 44 independents, are in the fray and the contest appears to be only between the ruling DMK's VC Chandirakumar and Tamil nationalist party, Naam Tamizhar Katchi's (NTK) M K Seethalakshmi.
Opposition parties, including main opposition AIADMK have boycotted the polls. State police and personnel from the Central Armed Police Forces were deployed in adequate numbers.
Erode East segment has a total of 2,27,546 voters. Nine booths, declared sensitive saw additional deployment of security personnel.
Officials said polling was stopped for ten minutes at the Brahmana Periya Agraharam polling station due to a technical fault in an EVM and it was replaced with another machine.
According to Election officials, around 4.30 pm, some NTK members entered the Veerappanchatram booth and complained to the polling officer that the DMK members were involved in exercising bogus votes. Some DMK agents denied the charges and said more than 40 NTK members from other areas were trying to exercise bogus votes.
On the interference of officials, both groups came out to the street and made accusations against each other with police officials and both groups squatted on the road.
Police removed them from the spot and asked them to make a written complaint to the polling officer and they dispersed.
Meanwhile, NTK candidate Seethalakshmi alleged that bogus votes had been cast in almost all the booths in DMK's favour.
(With inputs from PTI & Bureau)
