Voting in Tamil Nadu today: Tight security arrangements in place
Tamil Nadu: Voting for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections will begin on Thursday (April 23) from 7 am to 6 pm. Heavy security arrangements have been put in place across the state.
Of these, 57.3 million voters are eligible to vote in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. Of these, 1.4 million are first-time voters; 39.8 million are over 85 years of age. 75,064 polling booths have been set up across the state. A total of 4,023 candidates are contesting for 234 seats.
The Tamil Nadu Assembly elections are a four-way contest between the DMK alliance, the AIADMK alliance, the NDA and the TDP. The intense election campaign, which lasted for more than a month since the election date was announced on March 15, ended at 6 pm on Tuesday (April 20).
The Election Commission has imposed strict restrictions, asking those campaigning outside the constituency to leave the constituency.
Following this, the safe transport of electronic voting machines to polling stations was completed on Wednesday. Election Commission officials are closely monitoring social media campaigns and the distribution of money to voters. In this regard, Tamil Nadu Chief Election Officer Archana Patnaik gave an interview to reporters at the Chennai Secretariat regarding election preparations:
Cash and gifts worth ₹1,262 crore have been seized in Tamil Nadu so far, including ₹543 crore in cash.
As of Wednesday, 4.18 lakh postal votes have been registered. 75,064 polling stations have been set up in 33,133 locations in Tamil Nadu. Of these, 5,949 polling stations in 3,025 locations have been considered sensitive.
306,068 officers are working at the polling stations. Female staff are deployed at 325 polling stations and youth staff at 79 polling stations.
A total of 1,06,418 electronic voting machines are in stock. Voting machines and control equipment constitute 20% of the stock, and VVPATs, which verify voting, constitute 30% of the stock. Social media violations: 243 clarifications have been issued regarding violations of social media posts. FIRs have been filed on 163 complaints. Links to 2,180 inappropriate social media posts have been blocked.
5,634 complaints have been received through the election complaint app C-Vigil, and 17 complaints are pending.
He said that after voting is complete, the electronic voting machines will be kept safely at 62 counting centers, and the votes will be counted and the results will be declared on May 4.
