TIRUCHY: The polling percentage in Tiruchy West Assembly by-elections, which goes to polls on Thursday, will be under focus due to the boycott by many parties and the low-key campaign in the initial phases. The polling will begin at 8 am and go on till 5 pm. Those who are in queue till 5 pm will be given tokens and allowed to vote. After the revision of voters list, as many as 2,08,491 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. Women voters outnumber men as their number is 1,05,497, while that of men is 1,02,924. After delimitation, Tiruchy West was mostly carved out of Tiruchy II, which was the presitigious seat of revered DMK leader Anbil Dharmalingam in 1971. After the formation of the AIADMK, the party won three consecutive elections from 1977 to 1984. However, the DMK wrested the seat in 1989 and went on to win three times consecutively. The party candidate and former minister KN Nehru lost the seat in the 2011 Assembly elections by a margin of about 7,000 votes to AIADMK’s Mariyampitchai. The bypoll was necessitated following the sudden demise of Mariyampitchai in a mishap. The consituency has over 10 per cent Muslim votes and an equal number of Dalit population. Christians too account for about 10 per cent votes, while people from the backward communities are the majority. Besides the AIADMK and DMK, 14 candidates are in the fray. The number of polling booths will be 240, where 1,179 officials will be on duty. The campaign was of low key in the initial stages and picked up only in the last four days.
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