TN to hold urban local body polls before December

Chief minister M.K. Stalin is expected to make a statement on this during the budget session of the assembly. 

In a statement on Saturday, the minister said that Supreme court has directed to conduct rural local body polls in the nine new districts of the state before September 2021. 

The DMK earlier had not mentioned conducting the urban local body polls in its election manifesto but after finding that the government has turned popular among the public, the chief minister and his close team are keen that the urban local body polls are conducted soon. 

K.N. Nehru in the statement said, "The chief minister has directed us to make preparations for the urban local body polls two months after the rural local body polls in the new nine districts." 

The state government, according to the minister's statement, will not disturb the present rural local bodies which had assumed office in December 2019 and these bodies will complete their five-year tenure. 

The government will also be upgrading municipalities and corporations soon, the minister said. The DMK government is also taking up exercises to study the delimitation done by the previous AIADMK government. 

K.N. Nehru said that there were several complaints about the policy adopted by the previous government regarding wards and several wards with more women population was under general category, while wards with less women population, was under women reservation. 

Elections to urban local bodies were not held in Tamil Nadu since 2011 and the AIADMK government had tried to conduct the elections during 2016 when chief minister Jayalalithaa was hospitalized but the proposal was cut down by the Madras High court. The Court had then observed that the notification was not in compliance with the Tamil Nadu Panchayat (Election) Rules 1995. 

The DMK had also approached the court that the delimitation done by the then AIADMK government was not proper and hence finally elections to the rural local bodies were held in December 2019 except for the nine  new districts.