Thaindian News

Chennai, June 12 (IANS) Voting in the by-election to Pudukottai constituency of the Tamil Nadu assembly ended at 5 p.m Tuesday with around 65 percent of the over 190,000 voters turning up to cast their ballots, said an official. Polling was peaceful.

“Polling came to an end in all the 224 polling booths in Pudukottai constituency at 5 p.m. As per latest reports, 65 percent of the total electorate have voted,” an election commission official told IANS.

According to the official, around 67 percent of female voters exercised their franchise while around 63 percent of the male electorate turned out.

Officials said voting began at 8 a.m. and was peaceful with no untoward incident being reported from any of the 224 polling booths.

The by-election in Pudukottai, 350 km from here, was necessitated following the death of Communist Party of India (CPI) legislator S.P. Muthukumaran in a road accident in April.

It was a straight fight between the ruling AIADMK and the DMDK, with the DMK and others boycotting the polls.

The DMK had alleged that the opposition parties will not get justice from the election commission, while the CPI decided not to contest considering its practical weakness in facing the by-poll.

The two major choices before the Pudukottai voters were the ruling AIADMK candidate Karthik Thondaiman and the opposition party DMDK’s N. Jahir Hussain.

In the 235-member Tamil Nadu assembly, the AIADMK currently has 150 members (including the speaker) followed by the DMDK’s 29, the DMK’s 23, the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s 10, the CPI’s eight, the Congress’s five and the PMK’s three, among others.

Counting of votes will be on June 15.