As night fell, poll caravans left Erode

ERODE: The roads of Erode East assembly constituency were jam-packed for one last time before the byelection on Saturday evening, as vehicles of political parties queued up to leave the constituency.
After almost a month of intense electioneering, Erode East slowly returned back to normalcy as cadres of various political parties vacated the poll bound constituency.
Roads leading to Coimbatore and Salem witnessed heavy traffic snarls in the evening as cars of political party functionaries lined up for more than a kilometre to exit the city. Since chief minister M K Stalin and AIADMK interim general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami campaigned on the last day, a large number of cadres of both parties had thronged Erode from neighbouring districts too. The vans and buses that brought them too joined the line of vehicles adding to traffic congestion.
The surge of cadres resulted in all the eateries brimming with crowd in afternoon. In stark contrast, the hotels and tea shops saw lesser footfalls in the night.
The temporary shelters put up by the parties to function as their election offices were removed one by one and the hotel rooms occupied by the leaders and cadres were vacated.
Though cadres and functionaries of the DMK and AIADMK, who had come for campaigning from across the state left for their natives, most of the DMK ministers and former ministers of AIADMK chose to stay put in hotels and resorts located outside Erode East, but in close proximity, like Thindal, Solar, Vellode and in Pallipalayam.
They are likely to stay put in those places till February 27, the day of voting. Stalin left for Coimbatore and took away flight to Chennai after winding up his speech by 5pm while EPS who ended his speech a little before the deadline of 6pm left for his native Salem.
Election authorities meanwhile commenced work for the voting day.