TENKASI: Caste Hindus in Valasai village of Kambaneri panchayat withdrew their call to boycott rural local body poll and turned up to exercise their franchise after officials promised to set up a polling booth in their area from the next elections.
In the last one month, the villagers had staged various forms of protest to oppose the shifting of the polling booth from their area to an Adi Dravidar Welfare (ADW) High School, located in a scheduled caste (SC) residential area. In a statement, undersigned by revenue officials and caste Hindu representatives, Revenue Divisional Officer Ramachandran assured that a booth will be allotted in caste Hindus’ area from next polls.
“This booth was shifted to the high school only for the local body polls. Security arrangements were made near the school,” the RDO said. Police personnel led by Additional Superintendent of Police Karthik, were deployed in Valasai village on Saturday. Collector S Gopala Sundararaj, who is also the District Election Officer, inspected the polling at the high school and advised the presiding officer to ensure uninterrupted functioning of CCTV cameras there.