Chennai: The high voltage acrimonious campaign that gripped the entire State for over three weeks, prompting national leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make repeated visits, came to an end at 6 pm on Wednesday with all 39 candidates making a last minute attempt to woo their voters and all top leaders holding meetings at various places.
Chief Minister M K Stalin went around Chennai in the morning and canvassed for his party’s North Chennai candidate Kalanidhi Veerasaamy and then concluded his 22-day campaign with a meeting at Besant Nagar in the evening that drew a huge crowd of supporters of the INDIA coalition, while AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami was in Salem campaigning till the last minute.
BJP State president K Annamalai was at Coimbatore, from where he is contesting the April 9 election, and Naam Tamilar Katchi chief coordinator Seeman was in Chennai, seeking votes for his party candidates.
The Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo, who met mediapersons informally, said that no campaign would be allowed in form or in any media, including social media channels, after 6 pm when the curtains would be rung in and all outsider who had been canvassing for various candidates would be asked to leave for their own homes.
All efforts were being made to conduct the polls in a safe and secure manner with the installation of 44,800 web cameras at various places and a vigil mounted on digital transactions of money, besides the personal watch over the distribution of cash, gifts and liquor bottles by political parties to voters as a form of inducement.
Liquor shops all over the State remained closed. However, their sales tripled from the average outtake on Tuesday with the shopkeepers making arrangements for the quick dispensation of the bottle. The tripling of sales was not just due to political party functionaries stacking up liquor for distribution on polling day but also due to black marketers seeing a potential to make quick money during the next three days that had been declared as dry days.
The top candidates fielded by the three major political coalitions for the three constituencies in Chennai began their campaign quite early in the day on Wednesday and went around the localities that they might have missed in the last three weeks, lending a carnival aura till the deadline of 6 pm.
One of the major issues that candidates broached with the voters was floods. Tamilisai Soundarajan, the BJP candidate for South Chennai told the people that if she was elected, she would ensure zero flooding of the constituency as she had identified 25 lakes that would be desilted to create space for the rain water to flow in.
Her DMK rival Tamilachi Thangapandian attended the Besant Nagar meeting addressed by Stalin after concluding her house visits a bit earlier in the day. So did Dayanidhi Maran fighting it out from Central Chennai after hectic campaigning since the beginning of season.
Maran’s rival from the AIADMK camp, B Parthasarathy of the DMDK, too went around the constituency seeking votes by introducing him as a ‘ordinary man.’ Vinoj P Selvam, fielded by the BJP from Central Chennai, too, was in the field wooing the voters with promises of bringing in a change.
R C Paul Kanagaraj, BJP nominee from North Chennai, introduced himself as the ‘son of the soil’ who would be at the beck and call of every voter. Since he resides within the constituency jurisdiction, the people could access him easily for any help. Many traders’ bodies in North Chennai had reportedly pledged their support to him.
AIADMK candidate from North Chennai, Royapuram Mano, is also a local leader with enormous clout among the people of the region. He too was on his toes on the last day, garnering support from all sorts of people.
The AIADMK candidates, including Jayavaradhan from South Chennai, had been saying that during AIADMK rule, Palaniswami had distributed flood relief to the victims generously and that there were plans to start smart city projects that would have prevented flooding.
The BJP candidates’ allegation was that the DMK government did not spend the Rs 4000 crore released by the Union Government to take up measures to prevent flooding.
NTK’s Seeman was in suburban regions likes Korattur and Ambattur telling them people to give his party a chance since the DMK and AIADMK had failed to discharge their duties, during their respective tenures, properly.
