CHENNAI: Every time they heard a crack, voters who lined up at
Lady Willingdon School
in
Triplicane
looked up, startled but thankful that the roof did not cave in.
The colossal old building, which is 30 years older than independent India, has been a picture of neglect for the last few years, with many of the rooms shut as they posed a threat to students.
On Monday , the dilapidated building housed two polling booths.
“We had to struggle to open the windows for ventilation,“ said a polling official.
On the Paper Mills Road in Perambur, in Otteri cemetery were two similar polling booths.
In Thiru-vi-Ka Nagar constituency , around 1,080 voters had to line up within a 15ft ×10ft building, crouching while exiting the room after voting.
“It was extremely dirty yesterday . We had to clean it in the evening,“ said an election official.
The booth shares a wall with a shop that sells coffins.
R Palanivel, 55, a voter from the area, said the booth was actually an association building that doubled up as a school.
“We have to stand on the road where buses drive at great speed. Why can't we get a model polling booth?“ he said.
At the other end, a polling booth in Egmore constituency operated out of a cramped house leading to a slum.
Polling officials sat beside each other at the entrance to the booth, gasping for space amidst a deluge of voters.
Policemen barred reporters from coming within 10 feet of booths in other constituencies, couldn't do the same here as they themselves were within touching distance of the EVMs.
Social media expert Kiruba Shankar who voted in a South Chennai constituency said polling booths lacked ventilation and were very hot even at 7.30am.
“ All the windows were covered with translucent plastic board,“ he posted on a social media website.
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