CHENNAI: A retired official of the Tamil Nadu Health Department (TNHD) has approached the Madras High Court with a plea for restraining the State Election Commission (SEC) from conducting urban civic polls, as the State is in the midst of a third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The petition was filed by Dr A Nakkeeran, a former joint director of TNHD. When his counsel S Prabakaran made a mention before the first bench of Madras High Court on Wednesday, the judges agreed to hear it on Thursday or Friday.
The petitioner sought the court to order deferment of the elections to 21 corporations, 138 municipalities and 498 town panchayats till the pandemic situation improves. He also prayed for an injunction restraining the SEC from issuing the notification for the civic body polls.
Citing a report, he stated that containment process due to spread of the virus has started in places including Chennai city, Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Madurai, Salem, Vellore, Tiruva- nnamalai, Cuddalore and Chengalpet districts and there will be difficulties in movement of poll materials through the containment zones/streets during the elections.
As many as 24,199 villages and 28,129 urban streets have been brought under containment. In Chennai, 9,237 streets have ben declared containment zones, Nakkeeran stated in the petition. Moreover, he pointed out that positivity rate was one per cent on December 30 but rose to 17 per cent on January 17, 2022. There has been a 17-fold rise in the rate over 20 days, he stated.