Tamil Nadu logs 39.61% polling, Puducherry 54.30% till 1 pm

Chennai: Over 39 per cent of the 6.28 crore voters have cast their votes across the 234 constituencies in Tamil Nadu where Assembly elections are underway.

According to the Election Commission of India, 39.61 per cent of votes have been polled in the state till 1 p.m.

Polling began at 7 a.m. and would end at 7 p.m.

A total of 3,998 candidates are in the fray, seeking the 6.28 crore voters' favour to enter the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

With 77 contestants, the Karur Assembly seat sees the highest number of Assembly aspirants.

Leaders of various political parties, several movie actors and general public were seen voting early.

Chief Minister K.Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, DMK President M.K. Stalin, PMK Founder S.Ramadoss, Congress leader P. Chidambaram, DMDK Treasurer Premalatha Vijayakant, NTK leader Seeman, MNM leader Kamal Haasan, AMMK leader T.T.V.Dhinakaran and others cast their votes.

Similarly, the Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo, who is managing the poll show in the state, too cast his vote.

From the movies field, Rajinikanth, star couple Ajit Kumar and Shalini, Vijay, Surya, Karthi, Sivakumar have cast their votes.

Ajit Kumar and Shalini had reached their polling booth about 20 minutes before the start of polling to vote early in order to avoid the fan crowd.

He, in fact, never fails to vote in any election. In the past polls too, he was seen standing in the queue to cast his vote.

On his part Vijay pedalled his way from his residence to the polling booth with a large number of people following him on their two wheelers.

After voting he went back home on a two wheeler.

Speaking to reporters after voting, Stalin said, "people were casting their votes enthusiastically and the May 2 result will be great".

A total of 88,937 polling booths are there in the state and over 1,59,165 electronic voting machines have been deployed.

About 1.58 lakh security personnel have been deployed to prevent any untoward incident.

Similarly, voting is underway at the lone Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat where bypoll is being held simultaneously.

Meanwhile Puducherry recorded 54.30 per cent at 1.30 p.m.

The Puducherry Union Territory has just over 10 lakh voters and the fight for the 30-member Assembly is majorly between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) consisting of Congress (contesting in 14 seats), DMK (13), CPI, VCK (one seat each) and an Independent.

The rival National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comprises of All India N.R. Congress (16 seats), BJP (9) and AIADMK (5).