60 percent polling in Tamil Nadu (Third Lead)

Sixty percent voter turnout was registered in the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies of Tamil Nadu in the 2014 general elections Thursday, the Election Commission said.

According to the poll panel, the total number of votes cast till 3 p.m. was 60.52 percent of the over 55 million voters in the state. Officials added that the polling has been peaceful with no untoward incident reported from the state.

Leaders of various political parties, movie actors and people from various walks of life exercised their ballot power.

Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, DMK chief M. Karunanidhi, A. Vijayakant of DMDK, Vaiko of MDMK and leaders of other political parties voted.

Tamil movie actor Rajinikanth was one of the early voters. Others like Kamal Haasan, Ajith and his wife Shalini, Senthil, Vijay and others also exercised their franchise.

AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa told reporters after voting: "I request all political parties and general public to cooperate with the Election Commission (EC) to ensure voting is peaceful and fair."

Asked about the action taken by the Election Commission on the complaints made by DMK against rival AIADMK, Karunanidhi told reporters: "No action seems to have been taken."

The DMK Wednesday complained to the poll panel about the AIADMK distributing Rs.3,000 in cash for every vote and urged the EC to take action to curb the malpractice.

The party also complained that police were supporting the AIADMK in the distribution of cash to voters.

Karunanidhi hoped his party would win more seats this time than the 18 of the total 39 in 2009.

Of the electorate, 27 million are women and nearly 13 percent are in the age group of 18 to 25 years.

As many as 845 candidates are in the fray for the 39 Lok Sabha seats while 14 have thrown their hats in the bypoll for the Alandur assembly seat.

Voting is being held in a single phase at over 60,000 polling stations, of which 9,226 have been identified as sensitive.

About 150,000 security personnel have been deployed.

Many voters headed for the polling stations right after their early morning walk.

"The polling process is smooth. The voters' queues moved briskly," V. Nitya, a voter in South Chennai constituency, told IANS.

At several polling stations, electronic voting machines did not function initially, delaying the balloting. Officials said the malfunctioning machines were attended to.

Chief Electoral Officer Praveen Kumar said there will not be any extension in polling hours because of the time lost due to machine faults.