Civic polls only by July end: Tamil Nadu State Election Commission

In an affidavit filed on Thursday, TNSEC secretary TS Rajasekar submitted that since they need to carry out the conversion of the latest Assembly electoral roll to local body electoral roll and offer training to the polling staff they need time until July end to complete the election process.

The affidavit pointed out that since the local body electoral roll must be based only on the current Assembly electoral roll, the National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been roped in to convert the latest Assembly roll released by the Election Commission of India in January 2017. 

Pointing out that TNSEC has already initiated necessary action for the preparation of Photo Electoral Roll in this regard, the affidavit said the data of 5.92 crore voters must be demarcated and assigned their specific wards in respective town panchayat, village panchayat, municipalities and corporation in the software format of NIC. 

The plea further submitted that presently out of all the local body institutions totalling 1,052 nos namely 12 Corporations, 124 Municipalities, 528 Town Panchayats and 388 Panchayat Unions, for the village panchayats numbering 12,528, the electoral operations are done only in the respective Panchayat Union Offices involving 4,000 simultaneous users from 1,052 institutions, which is bound to be time consuming. 

Also, noting that various District Election Officers have requested for increased time to complete the correlation statement and to finalise the polling stations, the plea pointed out that the original schedule of 95 days, which was sought by NIC would have to be increased by at least 10 to 15 days. 

However, on completion of preparation of electoral rolls, necessary action for conduct of local body polls will be taken in pursuance of the Constitutional provisions and after due consultation with the government, the plea added.