Hours after the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission has announced the dates for the rural local body elections that would be  held in two phases on December 27th and December 30th, the state opposition parties have queued up in accusing the commission and the parties have demanded to conduct the polls in a single phase after completing delimitation of the wards in five newly created districts.

By accusing the State Election Commission, the opposition parties have condemned election commissioner Palaniswamy for failing to announce the dates for urban local bodies. Through his statement, the opposition leader of Tamil Nadu M K Stalin has compared commissioner Palaniswamy with the Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami. Stalin stated that the state had faced single-phase elections in Lok Sabha and legislative polls and added that its the first time the state goes for local body elections in two phases.  He said that the ruling ADMK party was afraid of facing local body elections that had led the party to cause a delay in announcing the election schedule.

He further accused the Chief Minister of passing legislation for indirect elections for Mayors and Chairpersons. Stalin claimed that DMK and its allied parties would face the local body elections and defeat the ruling party. He stated that the party will be tabling the meet with the leaders of allied parties in the coming days for confirming the seats and candidacy.

The Chief of MDMK party, Vaiko who observes close alliance with DMK, has called the schedule of local body elections as "murder of democracy" while the state secretary of Marxist Communist Party Balakrishnan stated that the state election commission was confused and not ready to conduct the local body elections. He further cited that the election commission is yet to complete the delimitation of wards in various areas of the state and demanded the commission to finalize the work as per the panchayat act.

Mutharasan, the state secretary of the Indian Communist party has said that the ruling party is not willing to face the elections and urged the ruling party and the election commission to host the local body elections in a single phase.

Also read: https://thenewstuff.in/tamil-nadu-goes-local-body-polls-december-two-phases