KARUR: With a 84.33 per cent turnout, Aravakurichi topped the four by-election constituencies that went to the polls on Sunday in terms of voter participation. Polling in the segment, which had the highest number of candidates, was largely peaceful.
In the morning police stopped four buses on the Aravakurichi-Pallapatti road. The passengers were natives of Muslim-majority Pallapatti working in Chennai. They had pooled money to hire the buses to go to their hometown to cast votes. Karur SP Vikraman let the passengers proceed after checking their identity papers. Pallapatti natives working in other parts of the country also visited the town to cast votes.
Since there were 63 candidates, polling officials had to keep four electronic voting machines in each booth. A few of them developed snags as soon as voting began.
At a booth at Sowndarapuram, in Pallapatti, all the four voting machines were placed in the descending order instead of the ascending order. After AMMK functionaries had a heated exchange with officials and protested, engineers arrived to the booth and fixed the problem. The polling was delayed by more than an hour. And in Seethapatti Colony, DMK cadre quarrelled with AIADMK cadre. Cadres of both parties blocked people from going to vote. Later, police dispersed the crowd.
TN tops in seizure of cash, materials
Chennai: During the period between March 10 and May 18, i.e., since the notification for Lok Sabha elections and the penultimate day for final phase of polling, Tamil Nadu topped the list in the seizure of unaccounted cash, precious metals, liquor, sarees and dhoties. The total worth of cash and materials seized as on May 18 stood at `950.12 crore. Of this, unaccounted cash totalled `227.95 crore. ENS