TN poll panel seeks time till July to conduct local body polls

The State Election Commission today sought the Madras High Court to extend its May 14 deadline to July 2017 to hold the local body elections.
The state poll panel made the plea for extending the deadline in an affidavit which it filed after the court warned it earlier on April 3 of contempt proceedings if it failed to complete the local body poll process by May 14.
The warning was given earlier by the high court's first bench headed by Acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh during hearing of the panel's plea against th last year's order by single- judge bench which had wanted the polls to over by December 31.

The division bench subsequently had fixed May 14 as the deadline, which too was found tough by the panel to adhere to and it has now sought extension of deadline to July 2017.
In its affidavit the state poll panel said it can complete the preparation of electoral roll for the local body elections only by May 2017, as per a timeline prescribed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The SEC added it had handed over the assembly electoral roll data to NIC on January 30.

It said converting data to NIC format from that of the Election Commission of India is a must to facilitate the multiple online data entry in all local institution to be done on NIC servers.

The data of 5.92 crores voters has to be demarcated and assigned to the specific wards in respective town panchayats, village panchayats, municipalities and corporations etc.
On completion of the preparation of electoral rolls of the local bodies, necessary action for the conduct of local body elections shall be taken in pursuance of the constitutional provisions and after due consultation with the government as per rule 24 of Tamil Nadu Panchayat's (Elections) rules and rule 22 of the Tamil Nadu Town Panchayat's, Third Grade Municipalities, Municipalities and Corporations (Elections) Rules 2006, it said.
The SEC urged the court to grant further extension of time for preparation of the electoral roll, which was originally proposed to be completed byMay 14.