CHENNAI: The Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) candidate of Chennai Central constituency was detained and released with a warning after he staged a protest inside one of the polling booths in Pallavan House claiming the light sensor in the EVM did not work when the button the corresponds to the NTK candidate was pressed.
The candidate Karthikeyan along with the party cadre staged a protest inside the booth. Following this, the police detained him. Then the election observer intervened and rectified the issue. Later, Karthikeyan was released with a warning.
In a similar incident, a history-sheeter and a secretary of the Hindu Munnani Katchi was detained and later released after he created a ruckus at a polling booth in Pulianthope in a drunken state on Friday morning. The man, CD Amudhan, had cast his vote and then started asking the people inside the polling booth to vote for BJP. Upon information, the Pulianthope police came to the spot and detained him and took to the station. Since he was in an inebriated state, his wife was called to the station. Amudhan was sent home with a warning after getting a letter from him.
At Alwarpet, a tussle broke out between DMK and BJP men as the two parties claimed one of them was trying to cast bogus votes in one of the polling booths there. The police intervened and pacified the situation. However, both AIADMK and BJP parties lodged a complaint against DMK for casting bogus votes.
Earlier in the day, the Chennai City Police Commissioner Sandeep Rai Rathore visited three polling booths in Shenoy Nagar, Perambur and Mylapore during polling to monitor the security arrangements. Speaking to the media, he said 400 mobile police teams were monitoring the city. He claimed more than 1,000 police vehicles were on patrol. A total of 20,000 police officers were deployed for the election-related security arrangements.
Talking about security arrangements for the counting, he said the Tamil Nadu Special Police (TSP) and Armed Reserve Police would be deployed outside of the counting centres, and the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) would be deployed on the inside. The counting centres’ premises will be guarded by the local police and a four-layer security setup will remain in effect for 45 days, until the counting day.