Traffic in RK Nagar roads

Chennai: The whole of RK Nagar, or the entire north Chennai for that matter, suffered from unprecedented traffic woes on Tuesday, courtesy high voltage campaign by all political parties on the last day to wind up electioneering for the by-poll. Right from the morning, traffic was hit in almost all arterial roads and interiror stretches too were no exception. And this continued till late evening, as leaders and cadres displayed their full strength.

Heavyweights from the ruling AIADMK, main opposition DMK, rebel AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, Bahujan Samaj Party and Naam Tamizhar, accompanied by large numbers of supporters, hit every street in RK Nagar and pleaded voters to back them in the December 21 by-election.

"Despite the presence of police and paramilitary personnel, traffic could not be regulated. I started to office in the morning, but took leave as I could not cross my area due to huge number of vehicles and people on roads," said Ravikumar, a resident of Washermenpet.

A traffic police constable said, "we were really helpless. How could we control thousands of cadres from different political parties with little strength? Even if we questioned them, they said it was the last day and they had permission to do campaigning."