Chennai: Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami today said local body elections will be held in the State soon.
Speaking to mediapersons at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Vandalur here after naming a few tiger and lion cubs, Palaniswami said the AIADMK will contest in majority of the areas in the civic polls.
Palaniswami’s statement comes a day after the party lost to DMK in the Vellore Lok Sabha election in a wafer thin margin.
The winning DMK candidate Kathir Anand garnered a 47.3 per cent vote share, while A C Shanmugam of Puthiya Needhi Katchi, who contested on the AIADMK’s Two-Leaves symbol, and got 46.51 per cent share.
Post the announcement of the result, Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, the AIADMK joint coordinator and coordinator, respectively, in a joint statement said that the percentage of votes secured by the AIADMK candidate showed that the vote bank built by the late party supremo and former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa remained intact in Vellore constituency.
They thanked Ministers, MLAs, MPs, party functionaries, spokespersons, district secretaries and alliance leaders for canvassing for the party and to those who had voted for their candidate. It may be noted that Municipal Administration Minister S P Velumani 17 July said the government was ready to hold the local body elections.
He was replying to Leader of Opposition in the House, M K Stalin who cited Union Minister for Rural Development Narendra Singh Thomar’s statement in Parliament recently that the local body funds for Tamilnadu cannot be released as the civic polls have not been conducted in the State.
Stalin asked the government to conduct the local body polls at the earliest.
Velumani said an amount of Rs 12,312 crore should be received by the State during the period of 2015 to 2019. “In this so far we have got 8,532 crore. For 22 years delimitation did not happen and now it has been completed. The SEC will today submit its position in conducting the local body polls in the Supreme Court today,” he said.
Meanwhile, on the same day, the SEC in the Supreme Court said the delimitation process will be completed before October. “There was a delay in preparing the revised voters list due to the Lok Sabha elections and the present drought condition. All measures are being taken to ensure that the civic polls are conducted at the earliest following the Supreme Court’s directive. There is no hidden intention in the delay for holding the election. Another 60 days are needed to finalise the voters list based on the new delimited wards,” the SEC argued. Accepting the SEC’s response, the Supreme Court has asked it to announce the local body polls in October.
New Rhino enclosure at Vandalur Zoo
In the zoo, Palaniswami named the lion cubs as Pradeep, Dhatchina and Niranjana. He also named four tiger cubs are Venmadhi, Yuga, Mithran and Rithvik. He also inaugurated the Rhinoceros enclosure for public view.