The crucial local body polls are underway in Tamil Nadu as the people are casting their votes to elect the captains to run the local government institutions in urban areas. The weeks of hectic campaigns and tours by the leaders and independent candidates have come to the showdown with voters are now been queuing up to cast their ballots and they will be deciding the fate of thousands of candidates.

The voting began at 7 am on Saturday - February 19 and it will be held till 6 pm, with the last one hour has been reserved for the voters who have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Urban areas across 38 districts have been polling to elect the representatives and the Tamil Nadu Election Commission had installed surveillance cameras to monitor the polling stations and the state government had deployed over 1 lakh police personnel for security purposes. 

Since the commencement of the polls, thousands of people are thronging towards their respective polling stations to cast votes and in the queue were notable leaders and celebrities, who had attracted significant attention amid the tensions in some of the polling stations between the rival parties. Actor Vijay is among the celebrities who had come to cast the votes immediately after the polling began. Vijay had cast his vote at a polling station in Neelankarai in the outskirts of Chennai. 

He had arrived in a car and had quickly caught surrounded by a sea of people and media persons who covered the actor's arrival and kept him in the limelight throughout his presence. It is typical that the stars with stardom would attract an overwhelming crowd each time they hop out to the public place and it was seen today when Vijay arrived. The visuals from the spot have been rampantly spread on social media even as the voting has been keenly watched by the political parties. 

Vijay's presence was covered till the voting compartment and after realizing that the crowds have caused inconvenience to the voters, Vijay had apologized to them. A video has been going viral in which the actor can be heard asking 'Sorry' to the people as he passes by. It is pertinent to note that Vijay's outfit 'Vijay Makkal Iyakkam' is contesting in the polls independently. It has fielded candidates across the state after it was given a potential reception during the rural local body polls that were held in 2020. 

As the pollings happen amid the spread of Covid-19, the Election Commission has rolled out adequate measures and instructions and appealed to the people to adhere to them. Voting is taking place in 31,150 polling stations and following the voting, the voting machines will be escorted to the respective counting centres and the votes will be counted on February 22. According to reports, Chennai had recorded a voter turnout of 3.9% as of 9 am while the Coimbatore corporation had recorded a voter turnout of 6.79% during the same time. 

தாம் வாக்களிக்க வந்த போது கூட்ட நெரிசல் ஏற்பட்டு மக்களுக்கு ஏற்பட்ட இடையூறுக்காக மன்னிப்பு கோரிய நடிகர் @actorvijay pic.twitter.com/AFVJ3kOaLb

— Mathiyazhagan Arumugam (@Mathireporter) February 19, 2022