CHENNAI: The much delayed civic polls for Tamil Nadu will be held in two phases on December 27 and 30 only for rural local bodies. The Tamil Nadu State Election Commission, which on Monday announced the polls to fill 1.18 lakh posts in village panchayats, panchayat unions and district panchayats, will announce the dates for urban local bodies, including corporations, municipalities and town panchayats, soon.
The civic elections were announced after a prolonged delay of three years in holding elections for the local bodies in Tamil Nadu.
The local body elections have not been held in Tamil Nadu since 2016 owing to various legal reasons. “Due to administrative reasons, the date for rural local bodies election is being announced now.
The date for urban local bodies polls will be announced shortly,” State Election Commissioner R. Palaniswamy said. Speaking to reporters here he said the election code of conduct comes into force immediately in all the rural local bodies.
The swearing in of the elected ward members and the presidents of panchayats would be held on January 6 while the indirect elections to the post of district panchayat and panchayat union chairpersons and vice chairpersons would be held on January 11.
Ballot papers to be used:
Ballot papers would be used in the elections to the rural local bodies except in Melpuram panchayat union in Kanyakumari district where electronic voting machines (EVMs) would be used in 114 polling booths on a pilot project basis.
Direct elections will be held for 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, said Mr Palaniswamy.
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. During the first phase, voting will be held in 31,698 polling stations and 32,092 booths.
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 district, 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.
