Septuagenarian’s ‘name not on rolls’, but elected civic prez

The post had two candidates, Panchalai Jayaraman (77) and Manjula Jayasankar, who vied for the total of 1851 votes in the village panchayat.

However, as Panchalai’s name was missing from the draft electoral rolls released recently, she was unable to exercise her franchise and this incident resulted in District Election Officer and Collector KS Kandasamy ordering counting not to be taken up on January 2 when voteswere counted for the rural local body elections.

After an inquiry was conducted by Kandasamy, he ordered that countingbe taken up on Wednesdayand this was done in the Kalasapakkam panchayat union office where Panchalai, who secured 965 votes, was declared electedand awarded the winningcertificate in the presence of the electoral officials present.