The Supreme court has, on Friday, directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (SEC) to conduct the local body elections across the state except for the nine districts Kallakurichi, Tenkasi, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, Tirupattur, Ranipet, Villupuram, Tirunelveli, and Vellore by citing the pending delimitation of wards.

The verdict of the Apex court was pronounced on Friday after the apex court bench heard the petition filed by the state's opposition party DMK where the party had sought a directive from the Supreme court on postponing the local body elections till the finalization and completion of the delimitation of the wards and the reservation of the electoral seats in the nine districts. Through its petition, DMK has underlined that the people of these districts would be left with baffles and confusion regarding their wards as the state government has recently created new districts.

On Thursday, the Supreme court had asked the state government of Tamil Nadu on the status of the delimitation process in the newly mapped districts and demanded the justification from the government on its proposal that the people of these districts won't be baffled up regarding their wards. 

Despite DMK's argument to stay off the entire local body elections to avoid confusion, the Supreme court, by assenting to the response of the state election commission on conducting the elections apart from these nine districts, had directed the commission on Friday to conduct the local body polls across the state except the nine districts and the court has awarded the State Election Commission with four months' time to complete the delimitation of wards and reservation of seats in the nine districts and to conduct the polls.

Last week, the State Election Commission had announced the dates for rural local body polls that were delayed for the past three years where the rural bodies in the state would have been scheduled to go for elections in two phases- December 27th and December 30th and since the apex court had issued its verdict to exclude the elections in the nine districts until the completion of the delimitation of wards, the election commission would be issuing a fresh notification for the local body elections.

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.