By IANS,
Chennai : As polling proceeded at a brisk pace Wednesday to elect 234 members to the 14th Tamil Nadu assembly, the rival DMK and AIADMK kept up the sparring and each claimed it was on the victory path.
Around 15 percent of the nearly 47 million people voted in the first two hours, said officials. A total of 2,748 candidates, including 141 women, are in the fray.
Although voting started at 8 a.m., many began assembling at polling booths even earlier, not only to avoid the scorching sun later in the day but also to prevent others from casting the vote in their name.
Technical glitches held up polling in some booths but these were quickly set right.
Speaking to reporters here after casting her vote, AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa predicted a landslide win for her alliance and a clear majority for her party. The AIADMK is contesting in 160 seats.
Terming the DMK corrupt, she said: “There has been corruption earlier but not on this scale. Not only the 2G spectrum scam but people are also aware of scams in granite quarrying, sand mining and others.”
She alleged the DMK had spent around Rs.5,000 crore in campaigning and in bribing voters but added that people were determined to throw out the government.
Srirangam constituency from where Jayalalithaa is contesting registered around 30 percent polling in the first two hours.
Chief Minister and DMK chief M. Karunanidhi is contesting from Tiruvarur near Thanjavur. “DMK’s chances are as bright as the ‘rising sun’ (the party’s election symbol),” he told reporters here after voting.
The party is contesting in 119 seats. Expressing confidence that the DMK could get the numbers to form a government, Karunanidhi did not rule out a coalition either.
“It will be a DMK-led government. It could be a single party government or a coalition,” he said.
His daughter Kanimozhi, after casting her vote, said the party would return to power as people were aware that welfare measures initiated by the DMK government would be scrapped if any other front took power.
Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan ALSO predicted a landslide victory for the DMK-led front.
Polling in Madurai district, a stronghold of the DMK chief’s elder son and central cabinet minister M.K. Alagiri, was going on peacefully, District Collector U. Sagayam said.
Though the Election Commission had said there would be a separate queues for senior citizens, that was not the case in many places. However, senior citizens got precedence over others.
Movie theatre owners association have decided to suspend screening of two shows across the state to enable people to vote.