Conduct rural polls sans delay, social organisations urge Tamil Nadu govt

CHENNAI: A group of social organisations has urged the State government to take steps to conduct the rural local bodies polls in 28 districts whose tenure coming to an end on January 5, 2025.

The social organisation comprising Thannatchi, Arappor Iyakkam, Voice of People, Thozhan and Institute of Grassroots Governance demanded the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission take steps to hold the rural local bodies polls immediately and the State government should extend its full cooperation to the commission in this regard.

In a press conference held at the Chennai Press Club, the activist said that the election to the 91,975 rural local bodies posts including 515 district panchayat (DP) wards, 5,090 panchayat union (PU) wards, and 6,746 village panchayat (VP) wards in 27 districts was held on December 27 and 30, 2019.

For the rural local bodies polls in 2019, the commission issued a notification for the election on December 12, 2019, in the district gazettes, they said, adding that no announcements were made for the rural local body polls for this year yet. They pointed to Article 243E(3)(a) of the Indian Constitution that states that elections for a Panchayat constituency must be completed before the Panchayat's term expires. The State election commission should conduct the polls, they said.

The activist said that the Supreme Court has made it clear that the election should be compulsorily held only if a natural disaster happened or due to the prevalence of an extraordinary situation in the State.

They noted that the public suffered due to the non-conduct of the local body polls between 2016 and 2019.