After a delay of almost three years with no local government or representation, it finally looks like local body polls may be on the anvil in the state. On Monday, the state government issued a notification in the gazette listing all the wards vacant across Chennai. Districts across the state are expected to follow suit with similar notifications.
According to the notification issued by Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash, there are a total of 200 wards in the Chennai City Municipal Corporation. Of these, 16 are reserved for Scheduled Caste, 16 for Scheduled Caste women and 89 for women in the General category. The notification, issued on May 24, reserves these divisions for persons belonging to these categories.
With this, it is expected that the polls too would soon be announced. The conduct of local body elections— to elect 200 ward councillors and 12,524 panchayat leaders in the state— have been stalled since October 2016 due to court proceedings and ward delimitation work carried out by the AIADMK government. In March this year, the State Election Commission (SEC) of Tamil Nadu had submitted in court that it will issue a notification for the local body elections in the state by May 31 as the ward delimitation exercise had been completed as per the 2011 census.
The government's statement was in response to a contempt plea filed by the DMK, the main opposition party in the state. In September 2017, then Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Indira Banerjee had ordered the SEC to complete election to local bodies by November 2017. However, the SEC did not comply with that order, plunging the affair into a year-long legal battle.
Even as the Lok Sabha polls were underway in May, the state government told the Supreme Court that it could not conduct elections due to non-availability of district administration officials who were involved in the parliamentary polls. The government has given a number of reasons for the delay, including the onslaught on Cyclone Gaja which struck the coastal and delta districts of Tamil Nadu in November last year. Ironically, much of the post-cyclone rehabilitation work was delayed without local body leadership.
As per the notification:
Ward numbers reserved for Scheduled Caste— 3, 16, 18, 21, 22, 24, 31, 45, 62, 72, 73, 99, 108, 117, 144 and 200.
Ward numbers reserved for Scheduled Caste women— 17, 28, 46, 47, 52, 53, 59, 70, 74, 77, 85, 111, 120, 135, 159 and 196.
Ward numbers reserved for women in the General category— 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 33, 34, 39, 42, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 51, 58, 61, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 79, 81, 83, 87, 88, 91, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 113, 118, 119, 122, 123, 125, 126, 128, 131, 132, 134, 136, 139, 140, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 158, 160, 161, 164, 167, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 179, 180, 183, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192, 193, 194 and 197.