The Madras High Court on Tuesday cancelled the conduct of elections to local bodies in the state citing irregularities in the poll notification.
When the case filed by DMK came up for hearing, the court also directed the state government to issue a fresh notification and hold the elections by December.
Elections to the local bodies in the state were scheduled to be held on October 17 and 19, and a total of 4.97 lakh nominations were received. The DMK had charged inadequate reservation of seats for Scheduled Tribe community and objected to “the hurried manner in which the polls were called”.
“The state government and State Election Commission shall look into and decide complaints regarding reservation, de-reservation of posts, deletion or addition of genuine eligible voters and enrolment of bogus voters before conducting the election,” the court said.
Observing that the notification for local body polls in Tamil Nadu was issued ‘in a rush’, the court directed the government to give details of the dates of notification and filing of nominations in previous polls before posting the matter for further hearing on October 6.
[Source:-DH]
