Mandate will decide successor to Jaya’s seat

Even as 59 candidates, including a woman, are in the fray, the contest was reduced to a tri-cornered one among DMK candidate N Marudhu Ganesh, AIADMK candidate E Madhusudhanan, and sidelined party leader turned independent candidate TTV Dinakaran. As many as 2.28 lakh strong electorate would exercise their franchise.

The EC, which had spent nearly Rs 3 crore, the highest for any by-election in the country, claims that it had pulled out all stops to prevent bribing while deploying eight Observers besides a Special Observer, another highest for any by-election. About 2,500 police personnel from the local strength have been complemented by about 950 personnel from Central Paramilitary Forces from 15 companies. The poll materials, including EVMs and stationery, along with the poll personnel, were dispatched to the centres on Wednesday afternoon.

The polling would begin at 8 am and continue up to 5 pm. A mock poll would be conducted in the presence of candidates’ agents between 7 and 7.30 am, and the results would be verified before the machines are reset and set for polling. Polling would be webcast and monitored by EC officials from their control rooms. A total of 125 cases, including the one against ‘disqualified’ MLA Vetrivel, were preferred on Wednesday. As many as 22 out of 125 cases registered are related to bribery of voters, and Rs 30.79 lakh was seized as unaccounted, and suspected bribe-money.