Tamil Nadu: AIADMK confident of wins in local body polls, to stick with allies

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami on Friday said his All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) will fight the local body polls with its allies and expressed confidence in winning the elections scheduled to be held on December 27 and 30. Palaniswami speaking to media person in Salem said, "We will have words with our alliance partners and fight the election when the Election Commission conducts it. We will have a discussion with them on seat-sharing and release the candidates' list."

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Supreme Court order

Earlier on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that local body polls can be conducted in Tamil Nadu except for nine newly-formed districts on a petition of the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). The apex court also directed that the delimitation process should be conducted in these nine districts of the state as soon as possible and local body elections should be held there within four months. The DMK had approached the Court, seeking direction to the SEC to carry out the delimitation and reservation process for newly created districts in the state before releasing the notification of the elections.

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First local body polls since 2016

After a long wait of three years, the people of Tamil Nadu are going to choose their local body representatives who will be at the bottom line of the political system to whom people can approach to sort out their basic issues. The State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday announced that the polls will happen in the start in two phases on December 27 and 30. State Election Commissioner R Palaniswamy referring to various administrative reasons said that the elections will only be held for rural bodies and urban body polls will be notified later.

Indirect elections to the post of mayors and the municipal chairman will be held on January 11. The local body elections have not been conducted in the state since 2016 due to various legal reasons and also because of the delimitation of wards according to the population census. According to political analysts, various political factors including non-stability was also one of the reasons.

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(With ANI inputs)