The Election Commission's announcement of the election schedule has evoked strong responses from various political parties, including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. “What is the compulsion [for the Election Commission] to fix hastily the date of polling as April 13? Even though no one can question the EC, should it not, like Caesar's wife, be above suspicion,” asked DMK president and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in a statement on Wednesday. In this context, he also referred to the gap of one-month between the date of polling and the date of declaration of results.
Referring to the fact that counting would be taken up only on May 13, he wondered whether it would be possible to constitute the new House in a matter of few days when the Assembly had to be formed by May 17.
The Left parties and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) urged the Election Commission to postpone the Assembly elections to a later date, saying April 13 was very close to the SSLC examinations that would be held till April 11.
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In a statement here, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretary G. Ramakrishnan said as many as nine lakh students in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry would sit for the examination and the election campaign would divert their attention and affect their preparation for the examinations. CPI leader D. Pandian echoed the same view. “Though we welcome the decision of the Election Commission to go for single-phase poll in Tamil Nadu, we want it to change the date taking into consideration the welfare of the students,” he said. BJP State president Pon Radhakrishnan said the Election Commission failed to take into consideration the sentiments of the Tamil people while announcing the election date because Tamil New Year would be celebrated on April 14, a day after polling.
He said while the election date was likely to affect the examination preparation of the students, the one-month gap between polling and counting would create scope for allegations of irregularities.