Peaceful polling in phase-I

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CHENNAI: State Election Commissioner S Ayyar on Monday described the first phase of elections to the local bodies as most peaceful..

CHENNAI: State Election Commissioner S Ayyar on Monday described the first phase of elections to the local bodies as most peaceful barring some stray incidents and denied the charge of the DMK and PMK that that booths were captured.Later, the State Election Commission announced that the average percentage of votes polled in the first phase stood at 77.02 with Chennai polling the lowest (48 per cent), as per information available regarding the votes polled at 5 pm. The percentage may vary after the final data is ready. Rural local bodies polled the highest (81.85 pc) followed by town panchayats (79.03 pc). In municipalities, it stood at 73.57. The percentage of votes polled in the other nine Corporations is as follows: Coimbatore (59.29), Erode (71.09), Madurai (63.07), Salem (69), Tuticorin (67.40), Tiruchy (63.62), Tirunelveli (61.45), Tirupur (67) and Vellore (72). The average percentage of votes polled in 10 Corporations stood at 64.19 per cent.Addressing a press conference here, Ayyar said he had made a thorough inquiry with both police and election officials on the booth capturing allegations levelled by the DMK and PMK and found nowhere in the State such incidents took place. “Such allegations were made only for publicity,” he said, adding the Commission had given serious attention to each and every complaint.On complaints that the polling process was not videographed in many booths in Chennai, D Karthikeyan, Commissioner, Chennai Corporation, said that they did their best in this regard.He said after the direction given by the Madras High Court, authorities approached neighbouring states as well as districts, besides volunteers and students, for videographing the poll process. In all, 5,000 people, including students, agreed to take part in the process. But in some places they did not turn up as they feared a 2006-like violence.On the low turnout in Chennai, the SEC pointed out that only 45 per cent and 36 per cent of votes were polled during the 1996 and 2001 elections to local bodies respectively.