Parties want single-phase April elections across TN

Cutting across party lines, political parties in the State also asked the Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora, who is on a tour to poll-bound TN, that single-phase election be held in April this year. The AIADMK also demanded postal votes for senior citizens above 80 as they would find it difficult to visit polling booths in the peak of summer. However, Left parties opposed the move stating it would lead to bogus voting and other malpractices. Meanwhile, BJP State General Secretary KT Raghavan said that polling should be after the Tamil New Year in April while DMK organising secretary RS Bharathi submitted that the purification of voters list is yet to be completed and demanded corrections in the voters roll. 

Earlier in the day, the high-level team from the Election Commission of India (ECI) led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sunil Arora, Election Commissioners Sushil Chandra and Rajiv Kumar, Secretary General Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner Chandra Bhushan Kumar met CEO Satyabrata Sahoo who apprised the ECI on the preparatory arrangements. “We are taking stock of the poll arrangements and a series of meetings are scheduled. Based on these, ECI will finalise the TN poll schedule,” Arora told reporters. On Thursday, the delegation will meet Chief Secretary Rajeev Ranjan and other officials. Following a media briefing, the delegation will leave for Puducherry. The election dates are expected to be announced early next month following which model code of conduct would be enforced across TN. 

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Chief Election Commissioner and Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu in a plea seeking to invalidate draft electoral rolls released on January 20. A PIL filed by Sailappa Kalyan came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices MM Sundresh and S Ananthi. The petitioner stated there were irregularities in the voter registration process and though the EC is busy over propagating 100% voter participation, voters are confused as electoral rolls mostly had double entry of names. In many cases, names of the deceased were also on the list. Therefore, he said that authorities should examine all irregularities and sought the court’s intervention on the issue. The bench later adjourned the case to February 17.