The state of Tamil Nadu is just months away from hitting the deadline of the current assembly and while the political parties have been unveiling the campaigns against the rivals, the Election Commission has been preparing to hold the assembly polls, the first legislative elections since the demise of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi. The Chief Election body has convened the key meeting in Chennai on Monday in which ten recognized political parties in Tamil Nadu participated. 

During the meeting, the ruling ADMK party has demanded the election commission to hold the elections early while the opposition parties had urged for the single-phase elections. The election is supposed to be held in May and according to reports, Secretary-General of Election Commission Umesh Sinha and a high-level delegation had arrived in Chennai for a two-day visit to review poll preparedness and hold discussions with the parties and the state government officials. 

On Monday, the commission had invited the representatives of ten recognized political parties for the meeting to discuss about the elections. The representatives from ADMK, DMK, BJP, Congress, and Communist parties had attended the meeting during which each party had tabled its demands concerning the election. The ruling ADMK had urged the Election Commission to hold the election in the third or fourth week of April while most of the parties had demanded the election body to conduct the election in a single-phase. 

After the meeting, Tamil Nadu Assembly Deputy Speaker Pollachi Jayaraman, who was the ADMK representative, said that the party had demanded the commission to hold the election in April owing to peak summer in May and suggested the commission to hold a single-phase election. Jayaraman said that each village should have booths and the booths with more than 1,000 votes should be split due to the pandemic. The ADMK further demanded the commission to conduct special camps for inclusion, corrections, and deletions of voters. 

ADMK's arch-rival DMK had come up with its demand for issuing fresh guidelines for postal ballots by alleging that the recent guidelines aren't with the security mechanism to ensure that postal ballots reach the returning officer safely after they are collected from the voters by the polling official. ADMK's ally DMDK had demanded postal ballots for people who are 65 years or above and it further demanded the commission to begin the counting of votes the day after the polling day. 

According to reports, the elections will likely be held during April and as demanded by most of the parties, the election commission would hold the election in a single-phase. Congress and the Communist Party of India had rejected the election commission's proposal to provide an option of postal ballots to absentee voters and senior citizens by claiming that the option of absentee ballots could involve malpractices including distribution of cash. 

The political parties had sought stern actions against cash for votes and they further sought to shut down the TASMAC outlets in the state during the elections and to deploy more Central Security forces and observers to conduct a free and fair election, free transport of voters, and to implement strict measures and protocols in the polling stations to curb the spread of the COVID-19. 

The high-level delegation visit has come at a high time when the political leaders in the state have started their campaigns and the upcoming election is the first for Edappadi Palaniswami as the Chief Minister, first for MK Stalin as DMK President, and first for legendary actors and political newbies Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. The delegation has arrived in Chennai for a two-day visit and the delegation has also held a meeting with district collectors and superintendents of police and senior state government authorities.