Stalin, DMK MLAs cast vote in Presidential election at Secretariat

CHENNAI: After getting discharged from hospital, Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday casted his vote at the 16th Presidential election, at Secretariat.

As soon as the polling commenced at 10 am, Chief Minister was the first person to cast his vote in the election. He was followed by Speaker M Appavu, Ministers, MPs and MLAs. The MLAs were given polling receipts at the MLAs room in the Secretariat with the help of which they entered the polling room, set up near the Assembly hall in the ground floor of the Secretariat, and casted their votes.

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They were given a special pen with purple coloured ink to write their candidates preference in the ballot paper and the paper was put inside the ballot box kept in the front of Presiding officer and Assembly Secretary K Srinivasan. After the DMK MLAs completed casting their votes, AIADMK MLAs led by its Interim General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami casted their votes.

However, former Finance Minister O Panneerselvam along with his supporters R Vaithilingam and PH Manoj Pandian voted in the afternoon. When Panneerselvam, who was infected with COVID-19, came to vote at around 2.45 pm he was asked to enter with a PPE kit. After wearing PPE kit Panneerselvam casted his vote at around 4.20 pm.

Similarly, Dairy Minister SM Nasar who was also infected with COVID-19 also casted his vote by wearing PPE kit at around 4.10 pm. All the 234 MLAs of the State Assembly casted their votes in the Presidential election. Apart from them, three MPs such as Congress MP Karthi Chidambaram, Erode MP Ganesa Moorthy and CPI MLA from Nagapattinam M Selvaraj also casted their vote in the Secretariat.

The MPs and MLAs were given two different-coloured ballot papers for voting. While MLAs were given paper ballots in pink colour the MPs were given ballot paper in green colour.

The polling ended at 5 pm, the sealed ballot boxes will travel to Delhi by air. Srinivasan and Deputy Secretary Ramesh accompanied the ballot box in the Air India flight to Delhi. The entire event was video-graphed. The polling for the Presidential election is scheduled on July 21 and the new President will take oath of office on July 25, as the office of current President Ramnath Kovind will end on July 24.

The voting for the 16th Presidential election is held across the nation today in all the states in which elected MPs and MLAs will cast their votes. BJP candidate Draupadi Murmu and common candidate of opposition parties Yashwant Sinha are in the race for the Presidential polls.

Udhayanidhi casts vote at eleventh hour:

Chepauk-Triplicane MLA Udhaynidhi Stalin who was not in India on the day of polling returned to Chennai and casted his vote at around 4 pm. He was the last of the non-COVID MLAs and MPs to cast his vote. Sources in Secretariat said that Udhayanidhi was in Thailand for a movie shooting and there was criticism that he will not vote in the Presidential election. However the legislator reached Chennai Airport at around 3.10 pm and reached the Secretariat to cast his vote in the evening.