Tamil Nadu BJP chief and party candidate from Coimbatore seat K Annamalai said the time of Dravidian politics is over and also accused the ruling DMK and AIADMK of spending Rs 1,000 crore in Coimbatore to influence voters. Annamalai made the statement after casting his vote at Uthupatti polling booth in Karur village on Friday.

He expressed his confidence of a historic result for the NDA on June 4, the IPS officer-turned-politician said the BJP will see a rise in its vote share in Tamil Nadu. Annamalai further added people of Tamil Nadu are with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  

He said in the state of Karnataka the party is expecting a clean sweep this time. The State BJP chief said the BJP will be the number 1 party in Telangana. He said he was confident that Tamil Nadu will deliver a very big resounding result this time. He said there will be a rise in BJP’s vote share in the state and time of Dravidian politics is over.

In Coimbatore, K Annamalai is contesting the election from Coimbatore and is facing DMK’s Ganapathy P Rajkumar and AIADMK’s Singai Ramachandran. All 39 seats in Tamil Nadu will go for voting in the first phase. K Annamalai spoke to the media after casting his vote and accused the ruling DMK and AIADMK of spending more than Rs 1,000 crore in Coimbatore to influence the voters.

He said if the ruling DMK and AIADMK can bring 1 voter in front of the media to say that BJP is trying to influence them, then he will leave politics the same day because he is running in this election as a matter of principle. The elections to the state of Tamil Nadu will be closely monitored as the state has been at the centre of the BJP’s southern push in order to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 400 paar goal.

People from all walks of life have come together to participate in the biggest festival of democracy as the Lok Sabha elections for the first phase have begun. Voters of all ages, including first-time voters, exercised their right to vote during the first phase of the election. A bride and groom appeared at the booth to cast their votes in an unusual incident that took place in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir.

The video of the couple is now going viral on the internet. Netizens are praising them for exercising their right. A user said these couples are inspiration to many. Another congratulated them and said they had set an example in the society.

Meanwhile, the Udhampur Lok Sabha constituency, which is comprised of the five districts of Udhampur, Kathua, Ramban, Doda, and Kishtwar, began polling at 7 a.m. despite bad weather.

In a simillar incident, Kapil Gupta married on Thursday and shortly after returned home on Friday morning, he cast his vote at a polling booth that was put up on the premises of the Jammu and Kashmir Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes & Backward Classes Development Corporation Limited in Udhampur town.

He urged people to cast their ballots in big numbers, saying, voting is our right and must be done on priority.

Sahil and Radhika, another recently-wed couple, showed up at an election booth set up at an Udhampur school dressed as bride and groom.

The bride said, on Thursday, the day when they got married, she suggested to to her husband that they will go for voting. Although her vote was not there but she accompanied her husband to the polling booth.

She continued saying that she will be visiting her parents later in the day, which is in a nearby village to fulfil her democratic right as well.

In Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur-Kathua, voting is presently underway. However, despite of bad weather, people are going to polling boot to cast their vote. Voting is scheduled to end at 6 pm.

As soon as the first phase of the Lok Sabha elecrtions for three of West Bengal’s 42 seats began at 7 a.m. on Friday, reports of clashes between the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Bhartiye Janta Party (BJP) began to circulate.

An argument between workers and supporters of the two bitter rivals at Chandmari, close to CoochBehar town, resulted in at least one injury. Reports of stone stone pelting also cirrculated.

Anant Barman, a local TMC functionary, was reportedly injured in a crude bombing at Bhetaguri and was admitted to the hospital. the state minister Udayan Gandhi, raced to visit Barman in the hospital.

All three seat, Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, and Jalpaiguri, where the first phase of voting is taking place today, were won by the BJP in 2019. 15.2% of voters in CoochBehar, 15.91% in Alipurduar, and 14.13% in Jalpaiguri turned up till 9:00 am for voting.

The BJP and TMC both charged that the other was intimidating voters, keeping them from going to the polls, and attacking poll workers. It is stated that temporary electoral offices were set on fire in places like Toofanganj in Cooch Behar and Dabgram-Fulbari in Jalpaiguri.

The majority of calls regarding voter intimidation and poll violence, according to a representative of the West Bengal governor’s office, came from Cooch Behar.

Five people were killed in April 2021 during Cooch Behar assembly elections, one of them was a first-time voter. There have also been reports of clashes between state minister Udayan Guha and union minister Nisith Pramajick’s supporters.

Meanwhile, for complaints regarding electoral violence, the BJP has established a helpline at its office in Kolkata. TMC officials reported that Abhishek Banerjee, the party’s national general secretary, was keeping an eye on the voting process from Kolkata.