Lieutenant Governor briefed about local body poll preparations in Puducherry

Government directed by SC to hold election within 4 months of the completion of delimitation exercise

State Election Commissioner Roy P. Thomas called on the Lt. Governor at the Raj Nivas on Monday. File photo

State Election Commissioner Roy P. Thomas called on Lt. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan at Raj Nivas on Monday to discuss the measures in place for the conduct of the local body elections later this year.

A press note from Raj Nivas said Mr. Thomas briefed the Lt. Governor on the preparations under way for the local body elections in compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court.

The local body polls were last held in 2006 in the Union Territory, with the term of office of the then elected municipalities, commune and village panchayats ending in 2011. Since then, the process has been in a state of deep freeze with the ward delimitation exercise hit by delays.

The Supreme Court had intervened repeatedly, through a series of orders, to put back on track the conduct of the local body elections. In 2018, the court directed the Union Territory to hold the panchayat and municipal elections expeditiously, and most recently in an order dated March 5, directed the government and the State Election Commission to complete the delimitation exercise within two months. The elections are to be conducted within four months of completing the delimitation exercise, the top court directed.

Meanwhile, DMK (North) convener S.P. Sivakumar has urged the SEC to foolproof the voter list by conducting door-to-door verification, through booth-level officers, for the local body elections, scheduled to be held shortly.

In a letter to the State Election Commissioner, Mr. Sivakumar flagged several discrepancies in the present voter list, including illegal entry of voters residing in other constituencies and a number of voters residing in the same address.

If the poll panel wanted to hold the local body elections in a fair and free manner, the voter list had to be corrected, Mr. Sivakumar said.

The Union Territory has five municipalities — two in Puducherry and one each in Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam enclaves. Besides, there are 10 commune panchayats (five each in Puducherry and Karaikal), in addition to 98 village panchayats across the four regions.