TIRUNELVELI
The rural local bodies of Tirunelveli and Tenkasi districts have 13,57,163 electorate, including 6,67,833 men, 6,89,291 women and 39 other voters, as per the electoral roll released on October 4 last.
Speaking to reporters here on Monday, Collectors Shilpa Prabhakar Satish of Tirunelveli and G.K. Arun Sundar Thayalan of newly formed Tenkasi district said polling for the rural local bodies would be conducted in two phases on December 27 and 30 as announced by the State Election Commission and as per the electoral roll.
A total of 41 Returning Officers and 579 Assistant Returning Officers would conduct the polling in the rural civic bodies that included village panchayats wards, village panchayat president, panchayat union wards and district panchayat wards. A total of 18,120 polling personnel would be involved in the election duty in 2,411 booths.
Since the ballot papers would be used in the rural local bodies, 4,272 small, 1,410 medium and 3,602 large ballot boxes had been kept ready.
“We’ve received sufficient quantity of paper for printing the ballot papers for the election of district panchayat ward, panchayat union ward and village panchayat ward members and the panchayat presidents,” said Ms. Shilpa, who will be the Joint District Electoral Officer for both Tirunelveli and Tenkasi districts.
On the commotion prevailing in a few panchayat unions like Papakudi after the carving out of Tenkasi district, the Collector said the bifurcation was done only on the basis of revenue villages and there was no confusion in conducting the local body polls with the available electoral roll.