CHENNAI: In a fresh round of verbal acrimony between the Opposition and the ruling AIADMK over holding local body elections in Tamil Nadu, the DMK president M K Stalin on Saturday asserted that his party had moved the court only to seek a level-playing field by following proper procedures and not for stalling the elections as repeatedly alleged by Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami.
Speaking to reporters here, he said the DMK had been stressing for proper delimitation of wards and reservation for ST and denotified communities in the Local Bodies.
There was no response from the government and hence DMK was constrained to move the court, he said, adding, “it was to ensure justice and not for stalling the elections.”
Mr. Stalin reiterated that delimitation of wards in the newly formed districts should also be completed. Despite DMK’s repeated pleas, if the elections were still announced, his party was ready to face it anytime, added Mr. Stalin, to drive home they were not running away from the prospects of election.
Earlier, Mr. Stalin visited Kolathur constituency and listened to grievances made by voters there. He also inspected various civic works going on in his constituency.
It was unfortunate that the Chief Minister was repeatedly “misrepresenting the facts” on this issue, pointed out Mr. Stalin.
It was the DMK which had been harping to hold the panchayat polls for the last three years, but to divert the attention of the people, the ruling party was “repeatedly blaming us”, he said.
Despite the lack of elected local bodies, Mr. Stalin reminded that the DMK was going down to all the 12,500-odd village panchayats, meeting people and heard out their grievances when the government has been keeping mum.
Meanwhile, DMK organising secretary, R.S. Bharathi, MP, in a petition submitted to the Tamil Nadu State Election Commissioner on Saturday evening, urged that all the legal formalities as required by Law, related to the conduct of local bodies' elections such as “delimitation, reservation and rotation shall be completed before issuance of notification for local bodies' election in the State.”
Mr. Bharathi said, "we reiterate that DMK party is not at all against the conduct of Local Bodies elections," but only emphasizing that the legal formalities as directed by the Supreme court should be complied with before issuing the notification.
The DMK legal wing secretary R Girirajan, handed over the petition to the SEC.
