TN- RURAL-LD CIVICPOLLS

TN rural civic polls on Dec 27, 30
(Eds: Adds details, DMK's reaction)
Chennai, Dec 2 (PTI) The long-awaited elections to rural
local bodies in Tamil Nadu will be held in two phases on
December 27 and 30, the State Election Commission announced on
Monday.
The model code of conduct comes into force immediately
in local bodies that go to elections and the poll notification
will be issued on December 6, it said.
The nominations can be filed from December 6 to December
13 and the scrutiny will be taken up on December 16. The last
date for withdrawal of nominations is December 18. The
counting of votes will be taken up on January 2.
The poll panel said elections to urban local bodies will
be announced separately.
DMK, which has approached the Supreme Court over the
civic polls said it was amusing that polls have been announced
only for rural civic bodies.
"As regards Tamil Nadu, be it Lok Sabha, Assembly or
local bodies, elections have been held in a single phase.
However, now, they have announced polls for rural civic
bodies alone...this is amusing," DMK chief M K Stalin told
reporters at Puducherry.
Days ago, Stalin had accused the ruling AIADMK of
"creating confusions" on matters connected to civic elections.
Legal experts will be consulted on the announcement and a
decision will be taken, he said.
Tamil Nadu State Election Commissioner R Palaniswamy
said direct elections will be held to 1,18,974 posts in rural
local bodies including 12,524 village panchayat presidents and
99,324 village panchayat ward members, 655 district panchayat
ward members and 6,471 panchayat union ward members.
Barring polls to village panchayat level posts, elections
to posts of ward members of district panchayats and panchayat
unions will be party based, he said.
A total of 3.31 crore voters are eligible to vote in
rural civic polls of which 1.67 crore are women, 1.64 crore
men and 2,277 are third genders.
Voting will be held in as many as 31,698 polling stations
in the first phase and 32,092 booths on December 30.
For all rural civic bodies covered under the Melpuram
panchayat union in Kanyakumari district, EVMs will be used for
polling in 114 polling stations, Palaniswamy said, adding this
was a pilot project of the Tamil Nadu State Election
Commission.
About 2,33,000 ballot boxes will be used for polling in
the rest of polling stations and an IAS officer will be
deployed as observer in each of the districts, he said.
Indirect elections will be held on January 11 for posts
of president and vice president in district panchayats,
panchayat unions and for the posts of vice president of
village panchayats.
Last week, the DMK had moved the Supreme Court, seeking a
direction to authorities to complete processes, including
delimitation ahead of notifying civic polls.
Civic polls in Tamil Nadu were originally slated to be
held in October 2016 and the matter later went to court.
Special officers were appointed by the state government
to run civic bodies since then. PTI VGN VS
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)