ERODE: People turned up enthusiastically at the polling stations here on Wednesday to cast their votes in the bypoll to the Erode East Assembly constituency and an election official said the voting percentage crossed 42 per cent by 1 pm.
Polling was peaceful and incident free, District Collector and District Election Officer, Raja Gopal Sunkara said, adding that till 1 pm, 42.41 per cent of polling was recorded in 237 polling booths and official sources said the percentage crossed 50 per cent by 2.15 pm.
Three EVMs were used as 46 candidates, including 44 independents, are in the fray and the contest appears to be only between the ruling DMK's VC Chandirakumar and Tamil nationalist party, Naam Tamizhar Katchi's M K Seethalakshmi.
Opposition parties, including the main opposition AIADMK, have boycotted the polls.
State police and personnel from the Central Armed Police Forces were deployed in adequate numbers.
Erode East segment has a total of 2,27,546 voters and nine booths have been declared sensitive and additional security personnel have been posted there.
Officials said polling was stopped for ten minutes at the Brahmana Periya Agraharam polling station due to a technical fault in an EVM and it was replaced with another machine.
When a woman claimed she was not allowed to vote as another woman had already cast her vote, it briefly led to a flutter and she argued with officials before leaving the polling station.
Voting began at 7 am and it will end at 6 pm.
The bypoll was necessitated due to the death of Congress legislator EVKS Elangovan in 2024.