Tamil Nadu State Election Commissioner V. Palanikumar on Wednesday announced that the urban local bodies polls for 21 municipal corporations, including Chennai, 138 municipalities and 490 town panchayats, will be held in a single phase on February 19.
The polling will be held, by following COVID-19 protocol, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and in the last one hour, those infected with COVID-19 alone will be allowed to cast their votes, he told reporters. In Chennai, there will be 5,794 polling booths.
The counting of votes will start from 8 a.m. on February 22 and the process will conclude on February 24, he said. The indirect elections [by newly elected councillors] for a total of 1,298 posts, including Mayor and Deputy Mayor, will be held on March 4.
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The elections are being conducted as per the directions of the Supreme Court.
In Chennai, there are a total of 61,18,734 voters, including 30,93,355 female, 30,23,803 male, and 1,576 transpersons.
As per the schedule released by Mr. Palanikumar, the elections will be notified on January 28. The filing of nominations will start from January 28 and continue till February 4, and will be accepted from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They will be reviewed on February 5 and can be withdrawn on February 7. The elected ward members will take charge on March 2.
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District election officials have been instructed to monitor the nomination process through CCTVs.
The direct elections would be held for 12,838 posts. This includes 1,374 posts across 21 municipal corporations, 3,843 across 138 municipalities and 7,621 across 490 town panchayats.
Overall the elections will be held across 31,029 polling stations, and instructions have been issued to ensure that necessary infrastructure is in place for differently abled to cast their votes.
There are 1,37,06,793 male voters, 1,42,45,637 female voters and 4,324 transpersons, taking the total number of voters in this election in Tamil Nadu to 2,79,56,754 voters.
In municipal corporations, there are total of 1,54,84,607 voters. The total number of voters is 64,92,735 and 59,79,412 voters are in municipalities and town panchayats respectively.
Mr. Palanikumar said 1.33 lakh officers would be deployed for polling with four officers per polling station and 80,000 police personnel will be deployed. As many as 55,337 control units and 1,06,121 ballot units are ready for the electronic polling.
IAS officers have been appointed as Election Observers in all municipalities. In Chennai, three officers have been appointed. Measures have been taken to monitor sensitive polling station, Mr. Palanikumar said.