Chennai: The bid to have a one-upmanship over the other between the DMK and AIADMK continued on the second day of polls for the rural local body elections in 35 unions of nine districts and for filling up vacancies in the other districts when all skirmishes were between workers of the two parties.
Though no major incident was reported from anywhere, many villages were tense with the DMK and AIADMK supporters working hard till the last moment to win each and every seat, keeping the authorities and security personnel on their toes.
Among the places that witnessed minor fights were Kattankalathur, Porur, Theruhambakkam and Kallakurichi and in Ganganallur in Vellore a AIADMK supporter was allegedly stabbed.
In Kallakurichi’s Pootai village election was stopped for about two hours as some miscreants made away with a bunch of booth slips at the election official’s desk and in Vellore’s Perumugai a power cut forced the officials to conduct polling with lights beamed from their mobile phones.
A mistake in details printed in the booth slips for a Panchayat Union ward member’s election caused some confusion, leading to some disruption in the polling at Puthuseri village in Kanchipuram district.
A 55-year-old election officer assigned to the Veedur booth in Villupuram district died of a heart attack before the start of polling at 7 am. He had stayed overnight in the village to start the polling in the morning.
Voters, in general, exhibited enormous enthusiasm in exercising their franchise with entire villages, first time voters to aged persons, walked to the booths and waited in the queue in most of the places.
Among the VIPs who cast their votes on Saturday as Speaker of the State of Assembly M Appavu, who turned up at a booth in Periyanayakiplayam village in Valliyur.
In Kalingapatti MDMK general secretary Vaiko, along with his son Durai Vaiko, who is a budding politician, and brother Ravichandran voted.
As per the present schedule, counting would be held on October 12 and all the newly elected local body representatives will take office on October 20. Subsequently, Presidents and vice presidents for the District Panchayats and chairpersons and vice chairpersons for the panchayat unions would be elected by the new ward members on October 22.
Meanwhile, the AIADMK has written to the State Election Commission to announce the results immediately after counting was over, to webcast or telecast the counting process and not to allow third parties, including MPs and MLAs, into the counting centres.
