This live blog is now closedPolling to elect the 17 th Tamil Nadu Assembly was held on Thursday (April 23, 2026) from 7 a.m. till 6 p.m.
The total electoral strength of Tamil Nadu stands at 5.73 crore, comprising 2.93 women, 2.83 crore men, and 7,728 third-gender persons. It includes 14,59,039 first-time voters.
As of 8.50 p.m. on Thursday, 85.05% of Tamil Nadu’s electorate cast their votes in the Assembly election, which will decide the electoral fate of 4,023 candidates in the fray. For the first time in Tamil Nadu since Independence, the State touched 85% voter turnout and the final data from the Election Commission of India is yet to be released.
Travel across the State saw disruptions, with many commuters facing delays and difficulty in accessing bus services while trying to reach their hometowns to cast their votes.
While largely peaceful, voting day was marked by some untoward incidents, chief of them being the stabbing of a head constable at a polling booth in the Poompuhar Assembly constituency of Mayiladuthurai district. In Harbour constituency, an altercation over alleged ‘booth rigging’ broke out between Minister and DMK candidate P.K. Sekarbabu, along with his supporters, and TVK candidate Ashok and his supporters.
Some poll boycotts were also reported across the State. Residents of the Scheduled Caste hamlet of Vengaivayal – where an overhead tank for supplying drinking water was allegedly contaminated with human faeces in 2022 – stayed away from the elections in protest.
The high-stakes contest primarily pits the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance against the AIADMK-led National Democratic Alliance, with Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeking to retain power and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami fighting to return to the treasury benches after five years.
THE HINDU
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