ULB special officers’ tenure extended 

Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam also introduced a Bill under which the tenant and owners will now get a window period of 210 days to enter into lease agreements.

Local Administration Minister SP Velumani introduced the Bill under which the term of office of special officers was due to expire on December 31, 2019, will now be extended up to another six months up to June 30 2020 or until the first meeting of the elected council.

Registering his protest, former Chennai mayor and Saidapet legislator M Subramanian said that the state had passed such extension bills for seven times over the past three years delaying the polls. The polls to urban local bodies like municipalities and corporation are delayed and the public confused over the concept of direct and indirect polls to civic body chiefs. Further, there are discrepancies with ward delimitation in Chennai. Ward number 137 in Chennai has 54,000 votes, whereas ward number 159 has 2,921 votes. Is this not a discrepancy? Similarly, all the six wards coming under the Royapuram constituency have been reserved for women without any representation for men, Subramanian said.

To this Velumani said that the local body polls are being conducted as per the directions of Supreme Court and emphasised that it was the opposition DMK that led to a series of legal hurdles delaying the civic polls. Intervening Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that the delimitation exercises have been completed as per norms and termed the issues raised by the opposition MLA as baseless.