By IANS,
Chennai: Around 84 percent of over 200,000 voters Saturday cast their votes in the by-election to the Pennagaram assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu. The polling was largely incident-free, officials said.
“As per initial estimate the polling percentage is around 84 percent. Final tally will be known only later,” the state’s Chief Electoral Officer Naresh Gupta told IANS from Dharmapuri, where he was camping on the Election Commission’s instructions to oversee the polling process.
Though 31 candidates are in the fray the poll is largely dominated by four major candidates – DMK’s P.N.P. Inbasekaran, PMK’s G.K.M.Tamilkumaran,AIADMK’s R. Anbalagan and DMDK’s Kaveri Varman.
Polling was brisk since morning with voters forming long queues outside the 250 polling booths.
At 3 p.m. the voting percentage was around 65 percent and at 4 p.m. it was around 74 percent.
There was a delay of 30 minutes in the morning at the booth where AIADMK candidate had to cast his vote, due to some technical hitch.
The Election Commission monitored the entire election process with web camera at all the polling stations.
Nine companies of security force had been deployed in the constituency for the smooth conduct of the poll.
A 10-member Bhutanese delegation led by Commissioner Tashi Gyeltshen was in the constituency to observe the election process.
The delegation was accompanied by an official from the Election Commission of India.
The delegation, after being briefed about the Indian election process by Gupta, visited a couple of polling booths.
It will also witness the counting of votes to be held March 30.