Violence in Chennai mars TN civic polls

Chennai, Oct 13: Large scale booth capturing and violence in the city marred the first phase of the local body elections in Tamil Nadu today.

While the polling was by and large peaceful in other districts, Chennai Corporation witnessed largescale incidents of violence, rigging and booth capturing.

While the ruling DMK accused the AIADMK cadre of fomenting trouble, the Opposition AIADMK and its allies charged the ruling party with booth capturing, rigging and resorting to violence in connivance with the police.

A visit to various polling booths in this megapolis showed the situation was an encore of the 2001 local body polls, conducted by the previous AIADMK regime.

At several places, AIADMK men resorted to agitations by staging road-roko and dharnas to condemn the acts of the ruling partymen.

They alleged mass rigging and claimed several polling booths were closed within a couple of hours after the election process began at 0700 hrs.

AIADMK MLAs V P Kalairajan and Sekar Babu were among the scores of partymen taken into custody by the police.

As reports of largescale rigging by the ruling DMK men poured in, the Opposition AIADMK, its ally MDMK and the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) of actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth demanded repoll with the deployment of armed forces.

The CPI(M), one of the key allies of the DMK-led DPA also demanded a repoll in one of the wards of the City Corporation. The two Left parties were taking on the DMK in some of the wards in North and South Chennai after failing to reach an agreement on seat-sharing.

UNI