While, on one hand, the counting of the local body polls has been underway in Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, the state's opposition party DMK has tabled its petition before the Madras High Court by citing the irregularities in counting the votes. DMK President and state opposition leader M K Stalin has, on Thursday, met with the Tamil Nadu state election commissioner when the results across the state have been pouring in to fill the vacant seats in the rural local bodies.

During the meet, M K Stalin has accused that the agents of the ruling ADMK party have been instructing and operating the counting centers in the constituencies including Salem, the native district of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami, with the help of the police and the authorities. While addressing the reporters, Stalin said that the DMK and its allied parties have been leading towards victory and the alliance is recording over 80% of the victory and as the opposition parties are progressing towards the victory, the ruling party has allegedly been unleashing efforts to stop the victory of the opposition parties through the help of the police officials and the authorities.

He stated that the votes have been counted in Edappadi constituency in Salem but the results are yet to announced and cited that the DMK party cadres have been reporting about the irregularities from the constituencies. He added that the DMK candidate has won in Kolathur constituency in Salem district but the results have not been declared while the authorities have announced the results in the constituency won by the ADMK candidate in Salem.

Stalin further added that these irregularities have been prevailing across the state as the DMK candidates have been leading in Vathalakundu constituency in Dindigul and Bodi constituency, Theni districts but the authorities had refused to declare the results. By alleging that the vote counting has been underway in the presence of ADMK agents, he said that the DMK party agents were reportedly beaten and forced to leave the counting center in Oodhalur, Tuticorin district.

The reports say that the high court bench consisted of Justices Sathyanarayanan and Hemalatha had consented to hear the petition tabled by DMK on Friday. The counting has been rolled out as scheduled earlier and the State Election Commission (SEC) has installed 315 counting centers across the districts that hosted the polls and the police personnel had been stationed in the centers as the authorities have been counting the votes registered in the four different colored ballot papers. The two-phased local body polls had seen about 2.31 lakh people who contested for 91,975 posts in the rural local bodies including Gram Panchayat President, Gram Panchayat Ward member, Panchayat Union ward member, and District Panchayat Union Ward member posts.

Also read: https://www.thenewstuff.in/local-body-polls-counting-has-begun-so-does-heat-between-parties