Constituents line up to vote at a polling station in Erode, for the Erode East constituency by-election, on Monday. (Photo | S Senbagapandiyan, EPS)
ERODE: The polling for Erode East bypolls began on Monday at 7 am.
The bypoll was necessitated by the death of incumbent MLA E Thirumahan Everaa of the Congress on January 4. This time, Thirumahan Eveera's father Congress Senior Leader EVKS Elangovan is contesting with the DMK in an alliance.
While there are 77 candidates in the fray, the contest is expected to be between EVKS Elangovan (74) of the Congress, fielded by the DMK-led Secular Progressive alliance, and AIADMK’s K S Thennarasu (70), a two-time MLA. Menaka Navaneethan (36) of Naam Tamilar Katchi and S Anand (43) of DMDK are among the other contenders.
Both Dravidian majors have treated the election as a referendum on the DMK government, although the AIADMK’s campaign was initially stymied by the leadership tussle between Edappadi K Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam. Edappadi Palaniswami has a chance to emerge as a tall leader in this Erode East bypoll. In view of the elections, 238 polling centres have been set up in 52 places.
A total of 1206 officers, 286 presiding officers, 858 polling officers and 62 additional officers, have been stationed for poll duty.
In total 1430 electronic machines are used as 5 voting machines, 286 machines each as a control machine and 310 VVPAT machines are used.
(With inputs from ANI)
