As the local body elections in the state of Tamil Nadu have concluded its first phase in the rural bodies of 27 districts, on Monday, the people have been queueing up in the polling stations as the second and the final phase of the elections had rolled out to elect the representatives of the rest of the rural local bodies that were left in the first phase of the polling that took place on December 27th and recorded with 76.19% of turnout.

The second phase polling has begun at 7 am on Monday and it will conclude at 5 pm and in the final phase, the people will be casting their votes to elect about 46,000 representatives in the village panchayats including village panchayat presidents, village panchayat ward members, union ward members, and district panchayat ward members in 27 districts and it has been reported that nearly 1.28 crore people would be eligible to cast their votes. The second phase has recorded with 10.41% of turnout till 9 am.

After the completion of the local body polls in rural local bodies, the results would be declared on January 2nd, 2020 that will reveal which party holds the local bodies that have been left vacant for the past three years. The reports say that the security mechanisms have been tightened in the second phase as the first phase had witnessed some troublesome incidents in the state where a ballot box was set ablaze in Thiruvallur district while a ballot box was reportedly taken away by a group in Pudukottai and a voter in Nagapattinam had attempted to cast a mendacious vote.

Along with the state police department, the officials of the state election commission have been monitoring the sensitive and vulnerable polling stations to ensure no troubling incidents are reported. The first phase of the polling had voted to elect 37,830 panchayat members, 260 ward members of district panchayats, 2,546 panchayat unions. On December 6th, 2019 the Supreme court had directed the state election commission 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 new districts. 

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 these nine districts won't go for the local body polls at any of the phase since the delimitation of the wards and reservations in these districts had not been conducted so far.

Also read: 

https://www.thenewstuff.in/tamil-nadu-goes-first-phase-local-body-elections

https://www.thenewstuff.in/local-body-elections-pils-seek-halt-results-and-install-tight-security