Tamil Nadu State Election Commission: Increase poll timings for local elections due to the coronavirus pandemic!
Posted on: 03/Sep/2021 11:30:09 AM
Tamil Nadu State Election Commission has announced that in the elections for the local administration to be conducted in 9 districts, the polling/voting time for the public will be from 7.00 AM to 7.00 PM.
The local elections in the State of Tamil Nadu was last conducted in 2019.
At that time, the boundaries for the newly formed districts of Vellore, Thirupathur, Ranippettai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, Thirunelveli, and Thenkasi were not defined.
As per the Supreme Court Order, local elections were conducted in 29 districts apart from the 9 newly formed districts.
Supreme Court had ordered that local elections for these 9 districts must also be conducted before 15th September.
In this scenario, as soon as the political patty DMK assumed government in Tamil Nadu, it has been planned to conduct all local elections in the districts of Vellore, Thirupathur, Ranippettai, Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, Thirunelveli and Thenkasi.
As per this, the voters’ list was released in the 1st Phase of the proposed local elections.
In a notification released in this regard by the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission, it is mentioned:
The State Government has ordered that all the guidelines for coronavirus prevention must be strictly adhered to while conducting the local elections. As such, it would be essential to test/monitor the temperatures of voting citizens.
As all necessary arrangements have to be made for these activities, it has been deciding to increase the polling/voting time to 12 hours!
Accordingly, as per the authorities granted to the State Election Commission in the Constitution, revisions have been carried out in the election Rules & Regulations and permission is given to conduct the local elections from 7.00 AM to 7.00 PM.”
