Hours after the Supreme court has pronounced its verdict to conduct the local body elections in Tamil Nadu except for the nine districts which are yet to host the delimitation of wards, the state's opposition leader and DMK's President M K Stalin has welcomed the verdict, that has come from the apex court with accord to the petition filed the state party to seek the directive from the court to postpone the local body elections until the completion of the delimitation of wards.

While addressing the reporters in the party's headquarters in Chennai, Stalin called the verdict as a historic judgment and a big success for the party. He stated that DMK has asked for delimitations in the newly mapped districts and the apex court had directed the election commission to conduct the polls across the state except in nine districts. By claiming that the DMK party is ready to face the local body polls, Stalin has accused the ruling ADMK party of being afraid of facing the people in the local elections.

Stalin added that his party neither aimed to stop nor to halt the local body elections and cited that the party wants the state election commission to conduct the elections after finalizing and completing the delimitations of wards and on the reservations of electoral seats for women and SC/ST people. He urged the state election commission to work on the delimitations of wards and demanded the state government to reserve the seats for women.

The Supreme court has, on Friday, directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct the local body elections across the state except for the nine districts Kallakurichi, Tenkasi, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, Tirupattur, Ranipet, Villupuram, Tirunelveli, and Vellore by citing the pending delimitation of wards and the court has awarded the State Election Commission with four months' time to complete the delimitation of wards and reservation of seats in the nine districts and to conduct the polls.

Last week, the State Election Commission had announced the dates for rural local body polls that were delayed for the past three years where the rural bodies in the state would have been scheduled to go for elections in two phases- December 27th and December 30th and since the apex court had issued its verdict to exclude the elections in the nine districts until the completion of the delimitation of wards, the election commission would be issuing a fresh notification for the local body elections.

Recently, the state government of Tamil Nadu had created five new districts from four big districts - Kallakurichi from Villupuram, Tenkasi from Tirunelveli, Chengalpattu from Kancheepuram and Tirupattur, Ranipet from Vellore and the delimitation of the wards in these nine districts had not been conducted so far.

Also read: https://thenewstuff.in/local-body-elections-supreme-court-directs-sec-conduct-polls