TN local body polls likely to be announced on Sep 15

Chennai, Aug 18 (IANS) The Tamil Nadu state election commission is likely to announce the dates of the rural local body polls on September 15. The elections are to be held in the nine new districts of the state.

Sources in the state election commission told IANS that the elections would be held by the end of September and the schedule would be announced by September 15.

The Supreme Court had in June directed the state election commission to announce local polls by September 15. This includes publication and notification of schedule.

The commission had requested the apex court to postpone the elections citing the raging the Covid-19 pandemic but the court directed to conduct elections by September.

The elections were scheduled are to be conducted in the local bodies to the nine new districts of the state carved out of the existing districts. Elections would be held in the local bodies of Kancheepuram, Chengalpettu, Tirupathur, Ranipet, Vellore, Villupuram, Kallakuruchi, Tirunelveli and Tenkasi districts. Election commission sources told IANS that the commission has been engaged in preliminary discussions on the conduct of elections with the district administrations.

The DMK and the AIADMK have been conducting several meeting of the party district level functionaries for preparing the grassroots for the rural local body elections. The BJP has constituted a 17 member committee for overseeing the election preparations.

In 2021 assembly elections, the AIADMK, PMK, and the BJP could muster only 12 out of the 45 assembly seats in the nine districts where the rural local body polls are to be held. AIADMK leaders have already told the district functionaries to get better results in the local body polls as that would provide a better mileage for the party in the fight against DMK.

Former minister and senior leader of the AIADMK, D. Jayakumar while speaking to IANS said, "AIADMK front will get a large number of seats in the rural local body polls. People are in anger over the unkept promises of the DMK government including the scrapping of NEET as well as Rs 1000 every month for homemakers. These will reflect in the elections. The AIADMK has done all the groundwork and is waiting for the dates to be announced."