TIRUNELVELI
The State Election Commission, which has planned to conduct the urban civic polls before Pongal, has exhorted officials to complete delimitation exercise as early as possible and get ready for conducting the elections in a free and fair manner.
The State Election Commission is reviewing the delimitation exercise in town panchayats, municipalities and corporations before finalising the electoral rolls.
Accordingly, elections for Tirunelveli Corporation, Ambasamudram and Vickramasingapuram municipalities, and 17 town panchayats have to be conducted in Tirunelveli district. As Kalakkad is becoming the new municipality in the district as it was upgraded recently, delimitation of wards is on now.
In Tenkasi district, Tenkasi, Shencottai, Puliyangudi, Kadayanallur and Sankarankovil municipalities and 17 town panchayats will go for election and delimitation of wards is going on in Surandai municipality, which has been upgraded.
In Thoothukudi district, election for Thoothukudi Corporation, Kovilpatti and Kayalpattinam municipalities and 18 town panchayats will be held. Since Tiruchendur has been upgraded as municipality, delimitation of wards is going on.
Election for Colachel, Kuzhithurai and Padmanabhapuram municipalities and 51 town panchayats in Kanniyakumari district will be conducted. Delimitation of wards is on in the newly formed Kollencode Ezhudesam municipality. Similarly, Aalur and Thengapudhur town panchayats have been annexed with Nagercoil Corporation and hence, delimitation is going on in the new corporation.
Conducting election for two corporations, 12 municipalities and 103 town panchayats in the four districts was discussed in a meeting. Though Nagercoil has been upgraded into a Corporation, the delimitation work is yet to be completed even as a good number of village panchayats on the periphery of the proposed Corporation are against annexing them with the Corporation.
As per the plan drawn by the officials, the 17 town panchayats in Tirunelveli district will have 399 polling booths and Tenkasi will have 356 polling booths in 17 town panchayats. In Thoothukudi, 318 booths will be created in 18 town pachayats and the 51 town panchayats of Kanniyakumari district will have 1,057 polling booths.
Similarly, the two municipalities of Tirunelveli district will have 37 polling booths and 67 polling booths will be created in the three municipalities of Kanniyakumari district. For the five municipalities of Tenkasi district, 299 polling booths will be established and Thoothukudi district’s two municipalities will have 149 booths.
Since delimitation of wards is on in the upgraded urban civic bodies such as Nagercoil Corporation, Tiruchendur, Kalakkad, Surandai and Kollencode Ezhudesam municipalities and Aalur and Thengampudur town panchayats, both appended to Nagercoil Corporation, elections will not be conducted in these local bodies as of now.
Chairing the meeting held here on Monday, State Election Commissioner V. Palanikumar said the electoral rolls and the list of polling booths should be prepared at the earliest based on the past elections.
Superintendents of Police, in consultation with Collectors, should take care of security arrangements to be made before, during and after the elections, Dr. Palanikumar said.
Collectors V. Vishnu (Tirunelveli), S. Gopala Sundararaj (Tenkasi), K. Senthil Raj (Thoothukudi) and M. Aravind (Kanniyakumari), Tirunelveli City Police Commissioner N.K. Sentharamai Kannan, Corporation Commissioners B. Vishnu Chandran (Tirunelveli), T. Charusree (Thoothukudi), SPs N. Manivannan (Tirunelveli), R. Krishnaraj (Tenkasi), S. Jayakumar (Thoothukudi) and V. Badrinarayanan (Kanniyakumari), Principal Election Commissioners K. Dhanalakshmi (Municipality) and G. Arulmani (Panchayats) participated in the meeting.