With the withdrawal of nominations for urban civic polls ending on Monday, the battle lines have been drawn for candidates from regional and national parties and independents for the February 19 polls to 649 urban local bodies across Tamil Nadu.
Till 9 p.m. the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) did not release the number of candidates declared elected unopposed.
A total of 74,416 nominations, including 14,701 for corporation ward member posts, 23,354 for municipality ward member posts and 36,361 for town panchayat ward member posts were received till February 4, the last day for filing nominations.
A total of 12,838 posts, including 1,374 corporation ward members, 3,843 municipality ward members and 7,621 town panchayat ward members in 21 Municipal Corporations, 138 Municipalities and 490 town panchayats are scheduled to be filled through the ordinary elections.
The counting of votes is scheduled to be held on February 22.
After the newly-elected members assume office on March 2, the indirect elections for electing the Mayor and Deputy Mayors for Municipal Corporations, Chairpersons and Vice-Chairpersons for Municipalities and Presidents and Vice-Presidents for Town Panchayats are scheduled to be held on March 4.
On Monday evening, the TNSEC said the flying squads have seized cash to the tune of ₹3.53 crore and goods valued at ₹1.20 crore and liquor bottles valued at ₹15.94 lakh across the State between January 30 and February 4.
Corporation releases list
Greater Chennai Corporation has released a tentative list of 2,672 candidates who will contest the local bodies elections in the city. At least 631 candidates who were validly nominated had withdrawn on Monday. In the 200 wards of the city, as many as 3,303 candidates were validly nominated.
“There is no ward with single contestant and so the question of declaring results in uncontested wards does not arise,” said an official.
“Right now our priority is to finalise the list of candidates in each ward, print the postal ballots, make the EVMs ready as per the procedure given by the State Election Commission. About 27, 000 polling personnel have been shortlisted. The first round of training was held on January 31, a mop up round on February 5. Now the second round of training will be held on February 10. Based on the list of candidates, the Corporation will print the postal ballots for the polling officials in one or two days. The polling officials can fill the postal ballots and send it. In addition to that, there are 15 counting centres wherein there are 37 strong rooms for the 37 assistant returning officers for the 200 wards. Counting centres are being made ready. There are 22 distribution centres. On Tuesday, we will be sending the EVMs to the distribution centres after randomisation. Polling officials will take the EVMs from the distribution centres on the pre poll day," said an official.
The GCC has asked the political parties to take the permission of assistant returning officers for rallies. The assistant returning officers will decide after getting the NoC from the police for permitting rallies.
