ERODE: Voting for the bypoll for the Erode East Assembly constituency concluded here on Wednesday peacefully and the voter turnout is expected to cross at least 65 per cent, election authorities said. 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, they said. 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 polling was over in all the 237 polling booths and dispatch of EVMs to the counting centre –Government College of Engineering– was on GPS-enabled vehicles.
Officials here said that the voting percentage is ’72 per cent’ adding, however, it is subject to further confirmation. 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.