CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday stayed the local body polls in Tamil Nadu citing a few irregularities in the notification was issued for the elections. The single-member bench was hearing a petition by the opposition DMK. The DMK had approached the Madras High Court alleging that adequate reservation has not been provided to the ST community as mandated by the Constitution for the local body elections and that the election process was announced in a hurried manner without giving opportunities to the other political parties to decide their course of action.
Passing the orders on the petition on Tuesday, Justice Kirubakaran observed that the reservations were not properly followed. The court struck down the notification issued for the elections. Now, the state election commission has to issue a fresh notification for the local body elections. As per the earlier notification of the SEC, the polls were to take place on October 17 and 19. The court had also directed the State Election Commission to conduct the polls by the end of December.
Incidentally, Tuesday was the last day to withdraw the nominations. The State Election Commissioner, P Seetharaman on Tuesday abruptly stopped addressing a press conference on the local body polls as the news broke about the high court order.