51.41% voter turnout till 3 pm in Tamil Nadu
Polling for all 39 seats in Tamil Nadu for the first of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections began at 7 am on Friday.
The result of the high-stakes triangular battle between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) will be declared on June 4.
On the percentage of voting in Tamil Nadu in the first phase of elections, the state Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo says, “Till 3 PM, the voting percentage for the entire state is 51.41%. The highest percentage of voting has been noted in Dharmapuri at 57.86%. Namakkal comes second with 57.67% voting… Minimum voting has been reported in the three constituencies of Chennai. Chennai Central is at 41.47%, Chennai South is at 42.10%, Chennai North is at 44.84%. Voting is going on smoothly in all the places.”
hief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo in Chennai said that apart from minor glitches with electronic voting machines (EVMs) at a few locations, the voting process was incident-free.
“There was a delay of about five to twenty minutes in four or five polling booths in Porur, Dharmapuri and Tiruchirappalli after the EVMs malfunctioned, probably due to lost wiring or cable fault,” Sahoo told reporters.
However, the machines were promptly fixed, and the voting process resumed without significant delay, he added.