Civic issues may see redressal as TN 'braces' for local body polls

After three long years of defunct local bodies and an equally detrimental state of civic affairs, the State Election Commission (SEC) is mulling to conduct the local body polls in Tamil Nadu.

Although the commission is yet to make an official announcement in this regard, it recently published a gazette pertaining to the reservation of women in wards for the local body polls, indicating that it may conduct the polls in the coming months. Corporation officials have also confirmed that they have been asked to prepare for the local body polls, which may be conducted this year. An official announcement in this regard is expected to be published in the coming months.

The last remarkable announcement made by the AIADMK government under former chief minister J Jayalalithaa was to provide 50 per cent reservation to women in the local body polls.

History of legal battle

The SEC had been citing delimitation and reservation process as the reasons for its inability to conduct the local body polls. However, the same commission announced civic body polls on September 26, 2016, a mere four days after J Jayalalithaa was hospitalised, that it would conduct the polls in two phases on October 17 and 19, 2016.

Sensing that the AIADMK might get the sympathy votes, the DMK approached the Madras High Court seeking a fresh notification on the local body polls. Acting on the DMK’s petition, the Madras High Court said that the notification was issued ‘in a rush’.

On October 4, the Madras High Court cancelled the local body polls and asked the State Election Commission to issue fresh notification and complete the polls process before December 31, 2016.

However, the commission went on an appeal against the single judge order and during the case hearing on January 27, 2017, SEC informed the court that it would conduct the polls in April. But, in the next hearing in March, 2017 the SEC told the court that it cannot conduct the polls citing the delimitation and reservation processes.

Caught in the crossfire

While the arguments were being traded, almost 12,524 village panchayats, 385 panchayat unions and 528 town panchayats in the state struggled with financial crisis to address civic issues in their respective localities.

Government employees working in local bodies said the first year (after the election to local bodies was suspended), they suffered severe financial crisis and had to shell out funds from their own pockets to resolve issues in their localities.

The Finance Commission grants of the Centre and the state were stopped, the moment local bodies ceased to have election representative (in 2016), said an official in the local body office in Coimbatore.

Holding fort

The AIADMK government which developed a rapport with the BJP government at the Centre after the death of former chief minister Jayalalithaa, managed to get a part of the finance grants from the centre even without the elected body and has managed to sustain with it. Currently local bodies are managed by government officials in the absence of elected representatives.

The three-tier system of governance was first introduced in 1959 and later in 1992 through the Constitution (73rd and 74th amendment) Act. In Tamil Nadu the Panchayat Act was enacted in 1994 and the local body polls have been held since 1996 without any hindrances until 2011.

Preparing for polls

Now, after the state rural development and panchayat raj departments released the reservation of seats for women and other categories, Tamil Nadu is expected to have the local body polls by August.

Confirming the information, rural development minister SP Velumani also told that the SEC would conduct the election in the coming months.

While the official machinery is already preparing details of voters, political parties are introspecting on working on their mistakes in the Lok Sabha elections to better their performance in the local body polls.

After AIADMK-BJP alliance was routed in the Lok Sabha polls, speculations was rife that AIADMK may distance itself from the BJP as the former’s vote share saw a sharp decrease from around 44 per cent in 2014 to 18 per cent in 2019.

However, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and rural development minister SP Velumani have recently confirmed that the AIADMK would continue its alliance with the BJP in the local body polls too.

Meanwhile, the DMK and its allies are also confident of sweeping the local body polls also as they did in the Lok Sabha election.

The SEC is likely to notify the election date in the coming days and would conduct the polls in two phases.