Chennai: About 60.34% of voters turned up at the polling booths to cast their votes during the second phase of polling for elections to rural local body elections in nine newly-formed districts, as at 3 pm on Saturday, according to Tamil Nadu state election commission.
According to media reports, the second phase of the polling is taking place for a total of 12,341 posts including 62 district panchayat ward members, 626 panchayat union ward members, 10,329 village panchayat ward members and 1,324 village panchayat presidents. The rural areas of the nine districts have 34.77 lakh voters. Of whom, 17.63 are women, 17.14 lakh are men and remaining 455 are transgender persons.
According to the details released by the election commission, Villupuram recorded the highest turn-out, as at 3 pm, with 70.62% and it is closely followed by Kallakurichi with 65.84%, Ranipet with 63.81%, Thenkasi with 57.62%, Chengalpattu with 56.78%, Kanchipuram with 55.90%, Vellore with 54.50%, Thirupattur with 54.33% and Thirunelvi with 50%.
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The polls were largely incident free except for a few instances where a few villages had boycotted the elections for multiple reasons. In Villupuram district, people from two constituencies, Thani and Virpattu, boycotted the election after the government failed to fulfill their demands. For example, voters of Virpattu boycotted the election demanding the state government to carve out their village from Aviyur panchayat union. They have been demanding the government to announce the panchayat as a separate panchayat union in Villupuram district, according to a report in ABP Nadu.