Nearly two months after the state assembly polls, the prominent political rivals DMK and ADMK are all set to lock horns for the upcoming local body polls in the state. The polls will be held in the nine newly-created districts and as per the directive from the Supreme Court, it has been expected that the state election commission would issue the notification of the polls by the second week of the next month. 

In the directive, the Supreme Court vacation bench had ordered the electoral body to conduct the local body polls in these nine districts and declare the results before September 15. The nine districts are - Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Vellore, Tirupathur, Ranipet, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, Tirunelveli, and Tenkasi. These nine districts were carved from the existing four districts - Kancheepuram, Vellore, Villupuram, and Tirunelveli. 

As these four districts would have a fresh delimitation process, they would also go for the polls along with the new districts to elect the representatives for the local bodies. The elections for districts should have held before December 2019 after the delimitation exercise, however, the previous ADMK regime had kept the local bodies without representations until the state assembly polls. The government had then cited the factors of the COVID-19 pandemic and assembly polls for not holding the elections in the local bodies in these nine districts.

A vacation bench of the Supreme Court comprised of Justices Hemant Gupta and Aniruddha Bose had on June 22 directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission to conduct the local body elections in the nine new districts and declare results before September 15. In the order, the judges said, "We grant an extension of time to complete the entire election process, including publication/ notification of election schedule and the result thereof before September 15, 2021, as the constitutional mandate to conduct elections in a time-bound manner." 

As the apex court had strictly said there would be no deferring of the elections beyond September 15, the political parties in the state have started their preparations as the polls are getting closer. While the opposition ADMK aims to secure the victory in the local body polls after facing a debacle in the assembly polls, DMK is preparing to further diminish the stronghold of ADMK in the local bodies by being the ruling party in the state. 

As the DMK had won most of the legislative constituencies in these nine districts and is the ruling party, the DMK eyes to have a comfortable sweep of the local bodies in these nine districts. According to reports, the DMK had started holding district secretary-level meetings at the party state headquarters on Monday and MK Stalin had also taken part in the meetings and taken stock of the party's situation in these nine districts. 

In the meeting, MK Stalin has instructed the district secretaries to frame the plans and strategies with the view of winning all the seats independently. However, the Congress party, which observes an alliance with the DMK is hopeful to get maximum seats in the local body polls from the state ruling party. Speaking to IANS, Tamil Nadu Congress Chief KS Alagiri said that Congress has performed extremely well in the recent assembly polls and that the party expects that at least 10% of the total seats in the local body polls will be allocated by the DMK. 

However, the DMK thinks that the Congress party does not enjoy a grassroot base in the state and the ruling party strongly considers providing more seats to Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) as Thirumavalan's party has a predominant presence in these districts - particularly in the northern districts like Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Ranipet, Vellore, and Kancheepuram. On the other hand, the ADMK would pile up its troubles from addressing Sasikala's political comeback and accommodating the allied parties. 

As Sasikala supporters expect that she will be hitting politics by July, her comeback would stir large-scale furore in the ADMK, which would disturb the current leadership of Edappadi Palaniswami and O Panneerselvam. The ADMK leadership would be surfaced with the demand from the PMK for more seats in the northern districts where it enjoys a stronghold. Along with these challenges, the ADMK would face trouble from the BJP which, amid having no strong base in the state, would threaten the ADMK that it will contest independently and break the vote bank if the ADMK refuses to allot the seats as per its demand.