Varsha Sriram
Delimitation of wards by the state government and court proceedings cited as reasons for the delay.
After the Lok Sabha elections and assembly by-elections, Tamil Nadu is all set to conduct the local body polls after delaying it for almost three years. Taking another step closer to conducting the polls, the State Government, on Monday issued a Gazette Notification listing the wards which are vacant across Chennai and also notified the wards in rural and urban local bodies which are reserved for women candidates and those from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
The notification issued by the Greater Corporation of Chennai, said that there are a total of 200 wards in Chennai City Municipal Corporation. Out of the 200, 16 is reserved for Scheduled Caste (SCs), 16 for Scheduled Caste Women and 89 for women in general. The notification issued by GCC Commissioner G. Prakash, however shows that no ward is reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Times of India reported that local bodies across the state have begun preparing the electoral rolls for the local body elections. Meetings are said to have been held regularly. The meeting held on Monday also discussed whether addition or deletion of names in the electoral rolls would be taken up.
In another notification, Director of Town Panchayats S. Palanisamy notified the names of the town panchayats across the State, which are reserved for women (general), SCs (women), SCs, STs (women) and STs.
The local body elections for 200 ward councillor and 12,524 village panchayats in the state has been postponed since 2016 due to delimitation of wards and court proceedings. The elections were supposed to take place in October 2016 but was stalled by the Madras High Court after the DMK questioned the manner in which the election process was carried out. The State government then began delimitation works based on 2011 census.
In March this year, the State Election Commission (SEC) of Tamil Nadu submitted to the court that it will issue a notification for the local body elections in the state by May 31 as the delimitation work was completed. Despite the then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Indira Banerjee’s order to complete the local body elections in 2017, the state did not adhere to the order.
In May, the Tamil Nadu government told the Supreme Court its inability to conduct the local body elections to due to the lack of district administration officials as most them were busy with the Lok Sabha polls. The government used several reasons for the delay, including Cyclone Gaja which hit the coastal and delta regions of Tamil Nadu in November 2018.
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