MADURAI: Polling in the 10 southern Lok Sabha constituencies and seven assembly constituencies were largely peaceful on Thursday. However, incidents of bogus voting, EVM glitches, missing voter names and clashes kept police, voters and poll officials on their toes for the day. In Madurai, pollling was stopped at seven booths in Muthusamy Higher Secondary school - polling station of Madurai North constituency after DMK and CPM poll agents raised suspicions over a sticker pasted on EVMs with a signature mentioning the letters ‘AIADMK’. Polling was also delayed in a few booths in Usilampatti, Melur, Madurai West constituencies.
In Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram and Dindigul constituencies, polling was delayed by 30 minutes to an hour due to EVM problems. For instance, in Periyakulam assembly constituency, for which bypoll was conducted, at booth 107 polling was delayed by 45 minutes due to the problem in the EVM Control Unit. Voters in Thoothukudi too suffered due to the EVM glitches at several booths. Polling time was extended at booths where delays had occurred.
Meanwhile, thousands of voters across the region were shocked to find their names missing from the voter list. In Killyoor assembly constituency at Kanniyakumari, a 1100 voters staged a protest with their voter ID cards after they were not allowed to cast their vote as their names were not on the electoral roll.
Several voters in Madurai East, Melur, Srivilliputhur, Thiruvadanai, Ottanchathiram and few other places in Tirunelveli, including Naguneri, found that votes had already been cast in their name. Very few were allowed to cast tendered votes by giving a self declaration. Frequent but minor clashes were reported in several places in the region, mostly between the AIADMK and AMMK cadres.
In Melur, bastion of TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK, clashes were reported from the morning between AIADMK and AMMK cadres. In the evening, in Kottakudi village of Melur Taluk, AMMK cadres confronted AIADMK cadres. At least one person was injured in the clash during which a petrol bomb was hurled. In Theni and Periyakulamtoo clashes erupted between workers of both parties.