Faulty EVMs, unsurety of the vote and power cuts made polling in Chennai a tedious process.
EVMs in Chennai forced voters to return without casting their vote. Atleast 384 EVMs and 692 VVPATs had to be replaced because of their malfunctioning. 59 per cent of voters turned out to poll on Thursday. 61.76% voted in North Chennai, wheras 57.86 per cent voted in Chennai central. South Chennai saw the least percentage of voter turnout, i.e., 57.43 per cent. However the polling in the state increased to 57.14 per cent by 5 pm. Because of the malfunctioning of EVMs in Chennai many voters had to leave without casting their vote.
“When I went to vote on Thursday morning around 7 am, the machine was not working. I had to come back after 10 a.m. to cast my vote. The officials at the booth never told us why the machines were malfunctioning, Venugopal, voter, Eldams road in Chennai told The News Minute.
Some voters even found that their names had not been mentioned in the list. “My wife’s name was there but mine was missing. I have been voting in the same booth since 1992,” said T Balasubramanian from Porur.
Once a voter casts his/her vote the name of the candidate to whom we voted will be shown for 7 seconds in the EVM and this was confirmed by the Election Commission as well. But many voters had to leave without making surety of the fact that they voted for their desired candidate as the officials asked them to leave. They were told by the officials that they did not know if there was such an option to make surety of their vote.
Besides issues of malfunctioning EVMs, uninformed election officials, the voters also had to go through the power cuts at the polling stations which created hassles in polling.
The phase two of general elections saw polling in the states of Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, J&K, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, U.P., West Bengal and Puducherry. Chennai central had a strong candidature between PMK’s Sam Paul and DMK‘s Dayanidhi Maran whereas Chennai South shared its candidature between AIADMK‘s J Jayavardhan, DMK’s Sumathi Thamizhachi Thangapandian and BJP‘s La Ganesan. Chennai North has DMK’s Kalanidhi Veeraswamy, BSP’s Robert Gansekar and DMDK’s Alagaappuram R. Mohanraj sharing the contest.