Urban local body polls: Polling starts on a brisk note in the western districts

Polling was largely incident-free; Coimbatore Corporation saw 6.79% voters by 9 a.m.; polling was brisk in Salem and Dharmapuri too

Polling for the urban local body elections in the western districts of Tamil Nadu started on a brisk note on Saturday, and was largely incident-free. Safety measures such as distribution of gloves and sanitisers were in place in almost all polling stations. 

The Coimbatore Corporation saw 6.79% voters cast their votes by 9 a.m. Polling started off peacefully at 7 a.m. without glitches in voting machines or any law and order issues, said Coimbatore Corporation sources.

In Tiruppur district, while some polling stations, such as Panchayat Union Middle School, Palladam West on NGR Road in Palladam Municipality, saw brisk polling since 7 a.m., others such as Corporation Middle School in Thennampalayam within Tiruppur Corporation saw a subdued turnout of voters.

  Minister for Information and Publicity M.P. Saminathan cast his vote at a polling booth in Panchayat Union Middle School at Muthur Town Panchayat. 

Polling was delayed by around 30 minutes at a booth in Municipal Middle School, Parapalayam in Ward No. 42 of Tiruppur Corporation due to a faulty electronic voting machine (EVM). The polling personnel replaced it with a reserve EVM and the polling commenced around 7.30 a.m., officials said.

In the Nilgiris, around 8% of votes were cast till 9 a.m. Almost 9.17 % of voters in wards in municipalities and 6.50 % of voters in town panchayats had cast their vote by then. 

Brisk polling was noticed in Salem as voters turned up in significant numbers to polling booths and long queues were noticed outside the booths. In Erode, polling began at 1,219 polling stations. Thermal scanning was done for electors at the polling booths who came up wearing face masks.