Over45 per cent of the 6.28 crore voters have cast their votes across the 234constituencies in Tamil Nadu where Assembly elections are underway.
Accordingto the Election Commission of India, 45 per cent of votes have been polled inthe state till 2:30 pm.
Pollingbegan at 7 am and would end at 7 pm. A total of 3,998 candidates are in thefray, seeking the 6.28 crore voters' favour to enter the Tamil Nadu Assembly.
With77 contestants, the Karur Assembly seat sees the highest number of Assemblyaspirants.
Leadersof various political parties, several movie actors and general public were seenvoting early.
ChiefMinister K.Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, DMK PresidentM.K. Stalin, PMK Founder S.Ramadoss, Congress leader P. Chidambaram, DMDKTreasurer Premalatha Vijayakant, NTK leader Seeman, MNM leader Kamal Haasan,AMMK leader T.T.V.Dhinakaran and others cast their votes.
Similarly,the Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo, who is managing the poll show inthe state, too cast his vote.
Fromthe movies field, Rajinikanth, star couple Ajit Kumar and Shalini, Vijay,Surya, Karthi, Sivakumar have cast their votes.
AjitKumar and Shalini had reached their polling booth about 20 minutes before thestart of polling to vote early in order to avoid the fan crowd.
He,in fact, never fails to vote in any election. In the past polls too, he wasseen standing in the queue to cast his vote.
Onhis part Vijay pedalled his way from his residence to the polling booth with alarge number of people following him on their two wheelers.
Speakingto reporters after voting, Stalin said, "people were casting their votesenthusiastically and the May 2 result will be great".
Atotal of 88,937 polling booths are there in the state and over 1,59,165 electronicvoting machines have been deployed.
About1.58 lakh security personnel have been deployed to prevent any untowardincident.
Similarly,voting is underway at the lone Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat where bypoll is beingheld simultaneously.
Meanwhile Puducherryrecorded 55 per cent at 2:30 p.m.
ThePuducherry Union Territory has just over 10 lakh voters and the fight for the30-member Assembly is majorly between the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)consisting of Congress (contesting in 14 seats), DMK (13), CPI, VCK (one seateach) and an Independent.
Therival National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comprises of All India N.R. Congress(16 seats), BJP (9) and AIADMK (5).