TIRUPATTUR: At least 10 persons with disabilities have been elected to various posts in the rural local body polls in the State. While 48 disabled candidates, members of the disability-advocacy December 3 Movement, contested in the elections across nine districts, eight were elected as Village Panchayat Ward Members while one was elected as Panchayat Union Ward Member in Kallakurichi district’s Chinnasalem.
Further, one disabled person with a spinal cord injury was elected Panchayat Union Ward Member in Vellore district, according to a statement from the Spinal Injured Persons Association, of which he is a member.
TMN Deepak, State president of the December 3 Movement, said he welcomed the results. In 2011, a deaf candidate was not allowed to contest the local body polls due to an archaic provision in the law barring speech impaired and deaf persons from contesting.