Chennai: Polling began at 7 AM Friday in all the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu for the 2024 general election, amid tight security arrangements. People arrived at the polling stations enthusiastically and waited for their turn to vote, with personnel of the state and central police forces standing guard.
The fate of 950 candidates will be decided by about 6.23 crore voters who are set to exercise their franchise in nearly 68,000 polling stations. DMK’s Dayanidhi Maran (Central Chennai), A Raja (Nilgiris) and Kanimozhi (Thoothukudi), BJP’s K Annamalai (Coimbatore), L Murugan (Nilgiris) and Tamilisai Soundararajan (South Chennai), former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam (Ramanathapuram), Congress party’s Karti Chidambaram (Sivaganga), AIADMK’s J Jayavardhan (South Chennai) and AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran (Theni) are among the prominent candidates.
Polling also began in neighbouring Puducherry where the Congress and BJP are in a direct fight. Voting was delayed by an hour in some polling booths, such as the one near Tambaram coming under Sriperumbudur Lok Sabha segment, due to technical glitches in the electronic voting machines. Officials said they were attending to it.
