The Supreme court has, on Monday, consented to hear the petition tabled by the DMK and its allied parties by accusing the state election commission of Tamil Nadu on allegedly violating the Supreme court orders. The reports say that the apex court would be hearing the petition on Wednesday while the nominations for the rural local body elections have already been started.

Through its fresh petition, DMK has claimed that the state election commission had granted the electoral seats for women and SC/ST tribal candidates to contest in the elections based on the 1991 census instead of considering the 2011 census. One of the senior advocates of the Supreme court, Abhishek Manu Singhvi who represents the DMK party, had submitted the petition before the bench headed by the Chief Justice Bobde with the view of challenging the notification issued by the state election commission on November 7th, 2019 in which the commission has granted the quota for women and SC/ST candidates for contesting in the local body elections.

DMK's notion comes three days after the Apex court had directed the state election commission to conduct the rural body elections across the state except the nine districts where the state government is yet to finalize the delimitation of the wards and reservation of electoral seats. After the Supreme court has pronounced its verdict, the state election commission has, on Saturday, announced that the rural body elections would be held in two phases on December 27th and 30th, 2019 and the DMK party has claimed the verdict as the historical judgment.

However, on Sunday, DMK president M K Stalin had backtracked and earthed his stand after his party had decided to table the petition in the Supreme court against the local body elections. The DMK party has passed a resolution on Sunday during the meeting to the district secretaries, MLAs, and MPs, through which the party has claimed that the elections have been proposed without completing the delimitation of wards and reserving the electoral seats for the SC/ST people. In his statement, Stalin said that the party has no option left apart from reaching out to the Supreme court towards seeking its directive to conduct the local body elections after the ward delimitations and reservation of seats have completed.

By directing the commission on Friday to conduct the local body polls across the state except for the nine districts and the court has awarded the State Election Commission with four months to complete the delimitation of wards and reservation of seats in the nine districts and to conduct the polls. Recently, the state government of Tamil Nadu had created five new districts from four big districts - Kallakurichi from Villupuram, Tenkasi from Tirunelveli, Chengalpattu from Kancheepuram and Tirupattur, Ranipet from Vellore and the delimitation of the wards in these nine districts had not been conducted so far.

Also read: https://thenewstuff.in/local-body-elections-stars-skip-while-sun-heats-revolt