Finally, after three years of delay, the State Election Commission of Tamil Nadu has announced the dates for the rural local body elections on Monday. The Election Commissioner of the state Palaniswamy, while addressing the reporters in Chennai, has said that the local body elections for the rural bodies of the state would be held in two phases on December 27th and December 30th and asserted that the dates for urban local body elections will be announced later.

Through his announcement, the commissioner has stated that the counting for the rural local body polls that will elect the representatives for village panchayats will be held on January 2nd, 2020 following which the results would be declared. The Election Commission has added that the first meeting of rural body representatives' has been scheduled on January 6th, 2020. The commissioner further stated that the nominations for the rural local body elections will begin on December 6th and will conclude on December 13th, 2019 and the names of the final candidates would be announced on December 18th.

The announcement of the local body elections from the election commission has come days after the state's opposition party DMK has moved to the Supreme court with its petition to demand the state government to execute delimitation exercise in the wards in five newly created districts in the state - Chengalpet, Kallakurichi, Tenkasi, Tirupattur, Ranipet. In its petition, the DMK has accused the ruling ADMK government on igniting the baffle in conducting the polls, that was delayed for the past three years. 

Despite the long delay, the ruling and opposition parties of the state have been under tug-of-words, heated accusations, and legal battle for the past three years that had presented major twists and politics behind conducting the local body polls. The ruling ADMK government has webbed itself into the critics after proposing to conduct indirect elections to elect Mayors of Corporations and the head of Municipalities and Panchayats, that had replaced the earlier proposal of electing the Mayors directly. 

By holding the indirect elections, people won't be electing the Mayors directly but instead, the Mayors and the Chairpersons would be elected by the councilors, who are elected by the people. The current local body elections should have been held in October 2016, the year in which the current government was formed and the Supreme court has banned the elections during that time with accord to the petition filed by DMK which sought the directive to postponed the elections until reservation and delimitation of wards are completed and by citing the petition, the ruling ADMK government has tabled the proposals to postpone the elections. 

While initially, both parties were accused of postponing the elections with their political motives, the government has announced that it would conduct the local body polls before this year after the Central government has halted the funds for the local bodies by citing that no representatives are elected. The current year's local body elections would precisely write the prefix for both the parties on their victories in 2021 state legislative assembly as these parties have equally been queued up with the criticism and the allegations from the people.