The rural local body polls in the nine newly created districts will be held in two phases on October 6 and 9. The counting of votes will take place on October 12, State Election Commissioner V. Palanikumar announced on Monday.
The model code of conduct came into effect in these nine districts with the announcement of the polls.
Polling will be held from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the last hour — 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. — reserved for COVID-19 patients and patients with symptoms of the viral infection.
The polls will be held on these days in the districts of Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Vellore, Tirupattur, Ranipet, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, Tirunelveli and Tenkasi.
Candidates can file their nominations from September 15 to 22. Scrutiny of nomination papers will be taken up on September 23 and September 25 is the last date to withdraw nomination, Mr. Palanikumar said.
A total of 27,003 posts are to be filled — 140 district panchayat ward members, 1,381 panchayat union ward members for 74 panchayat unions and 22,581 village panchayat ward members posts in 2,901 village panchayats.
In the first phase, polls will be held for 78 district district panchayat ward member posts, 755 panchayat union ward member posts, 1,577 village panchayat president posts and 12,252 village panchayat ward member posts.
In the second phase, the polls will be held for 62 district panchayat ward member posts, 626 panchayat union ward member posts, 1,324 village panchayat president posts and 10,329 panchayat ward member posts.
Polling will be held in 14,573 booths — 7,921 polling booths in the first phase and 6,652 booths in the second phase.
There are 76,59,720 voters in the nine districts. Of these, 37,77,524 are men, 38,81,361 are women and 835 are third gender voters. About 1.1 lakh government employees will be part of the polling exercise, Mr. Palanikumar said.
Indirect elections to the posts of district panchayat presidents, deputy presidents, panchayat union presidents and deputy presidents and village panchayat deputy presidents will be held on October 22. Apart from these, election to posts lying vacant due to various reasons in 28 other districts that went to the polls in 2019 will be held on October 9.
