MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court has sought counter from Madurai Corporation on public interest litigation filed by DMK MLA PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan seeking direction to re-do delimitation process in all 100 wards in the city ahead of notifying urban local body elections in Madurai.
Thiagarajan submitted in his petition that the delimitation of wards in Madurai city is in violation of some of the basic principles specified by the Delimitation Commission constituted under the Tamil Nadu Local Bodies Delimitation Regulations 2017 that boundaries of an assembly constituency should not be altered during delimitation and that a ward created should not run across boundaries of an assembly constituency.
He further pointed out that the rules regarding parity in the population of wards have also been violated as the number of voters in some wards is around 12,000 while in some wards the same is as low as 7,000.
"The imbalance in voters' distribution, community and gender-wise, also indicate that the delimitation exercise has been carried out in such a way as to benefit certain constituencies," Thiagarajan alleged.
"If the notification of delimitation is allowed to continue and elections are held based on the same, it would cause irreparable loss to the voters," he stated and sought the above relief.
A bench comprising Justices M Duraiswary and T Ravindran directed the Madurai Corporation to file a counter at the next hearing on January 29.