Civic polls: DMK meet endorses Stalin's move to approach court

: A high-level meet held by the DMK here on Sunday unanimously endorsed party chief M K Stalin's stand to approach the court again to ensure compliance of norms like delimitation in the upcoming civic polls to rural local bodies.

The main opposition party, in a meeting of its district secretaries, MPs and MLAs, condemned the State Election Commission for "negligent action" in issuing a fresh notification on Saturday for polls to rural civic bodies without allegedly complying with the Supreme Court directives.

The top court, in its December 6 order, had said processes like delimitation, quota for SC/STs and women should be done in accordance with law and a fresh notification for civic polls should be issued, the party said.

Such directives were not followed, yet a new notification was issued by the SEC, the DMK meet alleged in a resolution.

"This meet resolves to unanimously accept the view of party president Stalin that there is no other go except to approach the court again to see that civic polls are held only after fully complying with norms like delimitation and reservation as per the Supreme Court order," the party said.

The DMK also accused the ruling AIADMK regime of delaying civic polls for three years by not following legal norms like delimitation.

On December 2, the SEC had announced elections to rural local bodies in two phases on December 27 and 30.

When the DMK approached the apex court over aspects like delimitation, it directed the SEC to complete such processes in four months in five newly created and four residuary districts.

Subsequently, the SEC on Saturday issued a fresh notification for elections to rural local bodies in 27 districts of Tamil Nadu on December 27 and 30 barring the nine districts.