Voters braved searing heat to turn up at the booth in the Lok Sabha elections in Tiruchi and neighbouring districts in the central region on Friday.
Several voters lined up at the polling stations to cast their votes early in the morning to beat the heat. Except in a few places, long queues could not be witnessed at most booths in the city. Voter turnout at many booths in Tiruchi was moderate in the morning and turned into a steady trickle as the temperature rose. The maximum temperature touched 41.3 degrees Celsius in Tiruchi on Friday, 3.3 degrees above normal, according to the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai.
Although some of the constituencies such as Karur and Perambalur registered rather brisk polling in the first four hours, polling was sedate in most booths in Tiruchi. In Karur, 28.88% of the voters had cast their voters by 11 a.m. and in Perambalur the figure was 28.81%. The polling percentage was comparatively lower in Tiruchi at 22.77.
“The heat was particularly severe today and did seem to impact polling, although the voter turn out in the polling station at Manikandam was good. Shamianas were put up in most polling stations, still people found it difficult to stand even under the shade. The voter turnout would have been much better if not for the harsh weather,” said M. Thangavel, former Manikandam Union secretary of MDMK in Tiruchi.
Polling officials, police personnel on duty and party men canvassing support around polling stations had to endure a torrid time due to the scorching sun.
“The usual enthusiasm seen on an election day was missing in the rural areas, perhaps due to the searing heat. In the past, partymen used to visit households asking us those who were yet to vote to come and exercise our franchise. But there was no such interest,” said 87-year V. Rajaram of Mahadhanapuram in Karur.
He along with his 84-year-old-wife, Bhavani, were among those who exercised their franchise in the village. “The arrangements made for elders to cast their votes without hassles need to be appreciated,” Mr. Rajaram said.
Meanwhile, polling was largely incident-free, barring slight delays due to EVM malfunction at a few places. In Thillai Nagar and Thennur areas in Tiruchi city, many voters complained that they had not received the voter information slips supposed to be distributed by the booth level officers (BLOs) and rushed to get the same at the polling stations.
Early in the day, a group of BLOs were asked to leave the premises of Rajaji Vidyalya at Thennur and asked to stay 100 metres away from the polling station by the police officers on duty. Feeling slighted over this, the BLOs refused to distribute the slips by standing on the roadsides. The issue was sorted out later at the intervention of local representatives of political parties who took up the matter with senior officials.
