[1]Thursday’s presidential elections witnessed brisk polling at the committee hall of the Assembly with 197 MLAs, including chief minister Jayalalithaa, DMK chief Mr Karunanidhi, and the 15 MPs casting their votes before 1.30 pm, several hours ahead of the closing time. DMK’s MP Tiruvannamalai Venguopal cast his vote in Chennai.
As they had announced earlier, DMDK and CPI members abstained from voting. The total votes polled in Chennai accounts for 45,292 votes in the Electoral College.
Chief minister J. Jayalalithaa was the first to cast her vote at around 10.03 am followed by the party’s 151 legislators (including the Speaker) and 14 MPs at the conference hall in the Assembly. DMK’s MLAs voted in Chennai while their 24 MPs cast their votes in Delhi, including Kanimozhi and Raja who obtained permission to skip proceedings at the CBI court for voting.
Though the DMK legislative members, including party treasurer M.K. Stalin, and an MP had arrived as soon as polling started, they had to wait till their leader Mr Karunanidhi arrived.
Earlier, 10 CPI(M) legislators, led by Floor leader A. Soundarrajan, who was on bail after being arrested for staging a protest in the morning at his Perambur constituency, cast their votes.
Minutes after Ms Jayalalithaa left Fort St George, Mr Karunanidhi arrived to cast his vote. He was joined by his waiting party members. Asked to predict the poll outcome, Mr Karunanidhi told reporters to wait till July 22 to know the results.
Despite having the Election Commission’s identity cards, scribes were not allowed to enter the polling room.
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