Voters braved searing heat to turn up at the booth in the Lok Sabha elections in Tiruchi and neighbouring districts in the central region on Friday.
Several voters lined up at the polling stations to cast their votes early in the morning to beat the heat. Except in a few places, long queues could not be witnessed at most booths in the city. Voter turnout at many booths in Tiruchi was moderate in the morning and turned into a steady trickle as the temperature rose. The maximum temperature touched 41.3 degrees Celsius in Tiruchi on Friday, 3.3 degrees above normal, according to the Regional Meteorological Centre, Chennai.
Although some of the constituencies such as Karur and Perambalur registered rather brisk polling in the first four hours, polling was sedate in most booths in Tiruchi. In Karur, 28.88% of the voters had cast their voters by 11 a.m. and in Perambalur the figure was 28.81%. The polling percentage was comparatively lower in Tiruchi at 22.77.
