MADURAI

A section of representatives of political parties walked out in disappointment from a meeting called by Madurai Collector on Tuesday morning since they were informed that the rescheduling of polling due to Chithirai festival was remote.

Functionaries of all the recognised political parties had earlier submitted a representation on Monday to Collector S. Natarajan demanding the change of polling date from April 18, 2019 since the car festival of Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple and Lord Kallazhagar’s ‘Ethir Sevai,’ when lakhs of people visit the city, fall on the date.

K. Thilagar, former Madurai Corporation Councillor from Communist Party of India (Marxist), who attended the meeting, said that while they expected a reschedule, the Collector informed them that it was not possible.

“He said that he had taken up the issue to top officials, but the decision was to go ahead with the announced date,” he said.

“However, we told the officials that if the stated objective of Election Commission of India is to achieve high voting percentage, it will be severely affected if the polling happened on the planned date,” he added.

P. Manikandan, a State executive committee member from the Congress, said that the Collector instead asked us to highlight the challenges so that mitigation measures could be taken. “He suggested extending the polling time till night,” he said.

Sasiraman, Madurai district unit president of the BJP, said, “We highlighted to the officials that no amount of mitigation measures will be adequate to handle the situation. The officials are underestimating the challenges,” he said. A group of parties, led by the BJP, walked out of the meeting.

Later, the Collector, Commissioner of Madurai Corporation S. Visakan, Commissioner of Police of Madurai City S. Davidson Devasirvatham, Superintendent of Police N. Manivannan and other senior officials in the district were huddled in a meeting for a few hours.