Splitting of rural, urban local bodies polls sees a row in Tamil Nadu

In 1996, 2001, 2006 and 2011, polls were held at one stroke for all local bodies in the State.

December 05, 2019 03:52 pm | Updated 05:04 pm IST - CHENNAI

It has been over three years since Tamil Nadu elected Mayors, chairpersons, presidents and ward members to urban and rural local bodies. Multiple litigations had contributed to this situation wherein the municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats are being governed by special officers, something that goes against the fundamentals of the three-tier panchayat raj system.

State Election Commissioner (SEC) R. Palaniswamy’s recent announcement of a poll schedule only for rural local bodies (RLBs) - on December 27 and 30- and defer the notification of elections to the municipal corporations and municipalities in urban areas has caught political parties and specialists on local bodies off guard, making it a subject of intense debate.

Earlier, in 1996, 2001, 2006 and 2011, polls were held at one stroke for all local bodies in the State.

There are indications that the urban local bodies (ULBs) will go to the polls in late January.

As of now, elections will be held to fill up 1,18,974 posts in 12,524 village panchayats, 388 panchayat unions and 31 district panchayats. Opposition leaders have accused the SEC of behaving like “a constituent of the ruling party”. 

Their protest is more vociferous this time since the government, earlier this month, decided to change the system of election for heads of the ULBs from direct to indirect. The latest development has made the DMK, the principal Opposition party, approach the Supreme Court with a new application.

G. Palanithurai, an academician specialising in panchayat raj and local governance, says the absence of articulation of “credible reasons” for separating the ULB and RLB elections has created suspicion among all about the rationale behind the move. “Even though many other States have the practice of conducting the elections separately for the RLBs and the ULBs, what should not be overlooked in respect of Tamil Nadu is that we are having an efficient bureaucracy. So, ours cannot be equated with others,” he pointed out.

Mr. Palanithurai emphasised that the 73 and 74 Constitutional Amendments to the RLBs and the ULBs should be read together. He said that after completing the polls for the RLBs, the Commission should immediately cover the town panchayats, municipalities and municipal corporations. Only then can district planning committees (DPC) be formed. Four-fifths of members of these committees should be from elected representatives of both the rural and urban local bodies.

‘No legal hurdles’

 However, the SEC and his predecessor M. Malik Feroze Khan asserted that there was nothing wrong legally in not holding simultaneous elections. “As it will be for the first time that our State is having separate elections, the development is viewed somewhat differently,” the SEC contended. Mr. Khan said that during his innings, he had visited other States to observe the conduct of local body polls. There were States that held elections for one set of local bodies in a phased manner instead of covering them in one go. 

Asked whether the announcement will not provide an opportunity to the ruling dispensation to circumvent the model code of conduct by having government events in an urban local body that may be adjacent to a rural local body, the SEC replied that “if that happens, we will initiate action.”

Notwithstanding the pros and cons of the latest move of the SEC, what is certain is that nearly six crore electors of the State, both in urban and local areas, are going to be in “election mode” for the next two months.

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