Left parties demand single phase elections

CHENNAI: The Left parties on Monday sought withdrawal of the election notification for the rural local bodies issued by the State Election Commission and announce a fresh schedule for the rural and urban local bodies after completing delimitation of the boundaries in the newly created districts.

In a statement, CPM state secretary K Balakrishnan said that the AIADMK government which has been giving lame excuses for not holding the local body polls have been forced to issue the election notification after the Supreme Court’s intervention. “The government have an ulterior motive to issue the notification with lot of confusions and shortcomings hoping that it would be stayed by the court,” he said.

He noted that the State Election Commission’s decision to hold the rural and the urban local bodies polls separately is unprecedented in the state. “Even in the multi-phased Parliamentary polls, the results would be declared only after completion of voting in all the phases. This is done to ensure that the declaration of the results in one phase should not influence the other phases. Going against this approach, the State Election Commission decided to hold the elections separately for urban and the rural local bodies,” he said.

Balakrishnan said the SEC was confused and was not ready to hold the local body election. “The SEC has not completed the delimitation of wards in various areas. We want the SEC to complete all work as per the Panchayat Act and then announce the schedule,” Balakrishnan said in a statement.

CPI state secretary R Mutharasan said that the ruling party was not ready to face the local body elections. “The schedule announced today is not for the local body elections, but to show how the ruling party is not interested in facing the elections. The ruling party and the SEC must come forward and hold the local body election on a single day for all local bodies,” Mutharasan said in a statement.