TNSEC appoints poll observers for all 27 districts

According to a statement from the TNSEC, senior IAS officers of the rank of Commissioners, Directors and Managing Directors have been appointed as poll observers for27 districts, which are set to face polls for the rural local bodies on December 27 and 30.

Following the Supreme Court verdict on local body polls in the state, TNSEC announced elections for rural local body polls in 27 districts, excluding Chennai and nine districts from which five new districts were carved out. As decks were clearedfor local body elections the nominationsfor rural local bodies commencedon December 9.

The initial four days witnessed lukewarm response as only about 38,000 nominations were filed, but on the fifth day a record 71,763 nominations were filed. Since there was brisk nomination on Friday, TNSEC expected more nominations and directed the local body officials to work on Saturday to receive the nominations.

The total nominations as on Saturday stood at 1,65,619. Monday is the last date for filing nominations and the number of total nominations is expected to cross atleast 2 lakh.After the completion of nomination exercise, the poll ground is set toface intense heat as candidates are set to commence their door-to-door campaign. Following the filing of nominations, the political parties are involved in seat sharing talks with the allies and the talks are on the verge of completion. As far as the AIADMK alliance is concerned, AIADMK held several rounds of talks with its alliance partners.

In the first round of official talks, major alliance partners were invited and joint talks were held at the party office. In the subsequent rounds, talks were held with minor parties and the differences were sorted out.

Ministers were given power to sort out the seat sharing talks with alliance partners in districts and after the seat sharing talks were over AIADMK became the first party to release the list of its party candidates to contest in local body polls.