The Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) on Monday, February 7, cancelled the urban local body polls at the Kadambur town panchayat in Thoothukudi district, which was to be held on February 19. A total of 21 municipal corporations, 138 municipalities, and 489 town panchayats were slated to vote in a single-phase election on February 19.
Without elaborating on the reason, the TNSEC said that the polls were being rescinded as the election officials had not followed guidelines issued by the Commission for the first-grade town panchayat. It also added that fresh dates would be announced later, and a directive has been issued to the Thoothukudi district collector and district election officer to suspend the concerned election officials.
The counting of the votes for the state urban local body polls is scheduled to be conducted on February 22, and the newly elected members will assume office on March 2. Further, the indirect elections for the posts of Mayors, Deputy Mayors in corporations; chairpersons, vice-chairpersons in municipalities; and presidents, vice-presidents in town panchayats is scheduled to be held on March 4.
The Tamil Nadu urban local polls are being conducted after a gap of 10 years, with the last polls held in 2011. The rural local body election was held after a period of eight years in 2019 and in 2021 for the newly created districts.
The DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance with the Congress, VCK, CPI, CPI(M) and MDMK will be contesting together, as they did in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, rural local body polls and 2021 Assembly polls. However, opposition parties have changed their strategy for the upcoming polls. The BJP, which was previously in alliance with the opposition AIADMK, recently announced that it will contest alone in the election, as it had done for the state rural body elections in 2021. Further, Vijayakanth’s DMDK that was in alliance with TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK, will contest alone, as will actor Kamal Haasan’s MNM and Seeman’s NTK.
(With IANS inputs)