Rural local body polls in nine districts of Tamil Nadu next month

Rural local bodies in nine districts will go to the polls in two phases on October 6 and October 9, the first elections after the DMK government took charge in May this year. Elections in these nine districts were not held in 2019 due to the bifurcation of old districts and the creation of new ones.

Elections for 27,003 posts will be held in two phases, the State Election Commission announced on Monday, adding that the nomination papers for contesting the elections will begin on September 15. The districts where the elections will be held are Vellore, Ranipet, Tiruppattur, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Villupuram, and Kallakurichi.

V Palanikumar, State Election Commissioner, said bureaucrats will be appointed for overseeing the poll process. He said while the polling will take place on October 6 and 9, the counting of votes will be taken up on October 12. Polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm.

Indirect elections to over 3,000 posts like district panchayat and panchayat union chairpersons and vice-chairpersons will be held on October 22. Over 76.59 lakh persons, including 38.81 lakh women, are eligible to vote in the elections.

Sources said the elections for town panchayats, municipalities, and corporations will be held by the end of the year. The then AIADMK government had held polls for rural local bodies in 29 districts in 2019 after a gap of three years, following a nudge from the Supreme Court.

Since this is the first election after it came to power, the ruling DMK has been consulting its district secretaries regularly asking them to prepare for the polls. Opposition AIADMK has also appointed in-charges to oversee the election process.

Local bodies in these districts remain unrepresented since October 2016. The polls then were cancelled by the Madras High Court on a petition filed by the DMK demanding completion of reservation of wards and delimitation.

Taking the litigation as an opportunity to delay the polls as it was in shambles following the death of its leader J Jayalalithaa, the ruling AIADMK gave one excuse or the other to postpone the elections.