Bypoll-day blues: booth halted in Dharapuram, EVM glitches in Madurantakam as TVK faces first electoral test

Polling in the two Tamil Nadu Assembly by-elections recorded 35.55 per cent in Madurantakam and 37.28 per cent in Dharapuram as of 11 am on Tuesday, the poll body said, but the first electoral test of the four-month-old TVK-led government was not without embarrassment: polling was halted at a booth in Dharapuram, and technical glitches in electronic voting machines delayed voting at two polling stations in Madurantakam. Voting began at 7 am across 268 polling stations in Madurantakam and 282 in Dharapuram, both SC-reserved constituencies, and will continue until 6 pm. An election official said booths in both constituencies witnessed a steady footfall across age groups through the morning, with district administrations declaring a local holiday to aid turnout. The disruptions, though localised, cut against the machinery's own claims of elaborate arrangements. In Madurantakam, EVM and VVPAT glitches forced delays at two polling stations before officials restored voting. In Dharapuram, polling was halted outright at one booth, an unusually blunt breakdown for a contest under national media gaze. For the TVK government, this is judgment day. The party assumed office barely four months ago, and these bypolls are its first encounter with the ballot box. The vacancies arose after AIADMK MLAs Maragatham Kumaravel and P Sathyabama resigned, joined TVK, and were promptly renominated by the ruling party, a manoeuvre the opposition has branded horse-trading. The contests have drawn the full weight of Tamil Nadu's political class. In Dharapuram, TVK's Sathyabama faces DMK's Suganya, AIADMK's Banumathi, CPI's Lakshmanan and NTK's Karthika. DMK president M K Stalin and Udhayanidhi Stalin campaigned alongside AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, NTK chief Seeman and Left leaders, while TVK ministers were deployed constituency-wise. Counting is on October 9, and the verdict will be read as the first verdict on Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay's governance. The campaign already carried a whiff of administrative strain: a day after the Chief Minister reviewed the power utility's preparedness last month, power cuts disrupted ministers' meetings in both constituencies, with a video of Minister Aadhav Arjuna demanding a generator doing the rounds online. Turnout remains the number to watch. By 11 am, roughly a third of the electorate had voted in both seats: 2,12,639 voters are eligible in Madurantakam and 2,22,406 in Dharapuram. Whether the halted booth and glitching machines dent confidence in the process will be known only when the machines, such as they are, are counted on Friday.