Voters in queue to cast franchise for lone Lok Sabha seat in Puducherry

Polling for the lone Lok Sabha seat in Puducherry began here Thursday along with voting for the bypoll to fill the vacant Thattanchavady assembly seat. The main battle for the parliamentary seat from the Union Territory is between the ruling Congress's candidate V Vaithilingam, a former assembly speaker, and opposition AINRC nominee K Narayanasamy.

There are 18 contestants in the fray, including two women candidates. The AINRC candidate is a doctor-turned-politician while actor-politician Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam has nominated former AIADMK legislator M A S Subramanian.

The assembly seat fell vacant after AINRC legislator Ashok Anand was disqualified following his conviction in a disproportionate assets case by a special CBI court in October. Puducherry and its outlying regions of Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam together constitute the lone Lok Sabha seat and have a total strength of 9,73,410 voters.

They include 31,905 first-time voters in the age group of 18 to 19 years, Chief Electoral Officer V Candavelou said in a release. Polling will go on till 6 pm in what is the second phase of the parliamentary election.

Of the total 970 polling stations spread across the Union Territory, 222 have been identified as vulnerable and 25 polling stations have been identified as critical, he said. DMK is aspiring to wrest the Thattanchavady Assembly seat from the AINRC and it has fielded an oil merchant K Venkatesan. The AINRC nominee is P Neduncheziane.