CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) is gearing up to conduct local body elections across the State at the earliest and is set to fix a deadline for the reclassification of wards in local bodies. 

At a meeting on Thursday, State Election Commissioner and chairman of the ward reclassification committee P Jothi Nirmalasamy discussed the reclassification of wards in the urban local bodies of Pudukkottai, Kallakurichi and Tenkasi districts.

In a statement, the commission said the committee will now forward recommendations on fixing the number of wards to the government. "The committee has also decided to fix a deadline for completing the reclassification exercise," the SEC said.

V Amuthavalli, commissioner for Rural Development; B Madhusudhan Reddy, director of Municipal Administration; and GS Sameeran, commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation, attended the meeting.

Earlier, at the hearing of a case relating to local body elections, the State government had given an undertaking before the court that rural local body elections would be held only after the reorganisation process was completed. 

The State government has also decided to conduct simultaneous elections to rural and urban local bodies after March. The five-year term of Tamil Nadu's urban local bodies is due to end in March.