Chennai: Tamilnadu seems to be inching closer to civic body elections.
A second government order has been passed by the State Election Commission to set up booths for the local body polls.
This relates to setting up of booths in corporations, municipalities, third grade town panchayats and village panchayats.
On May 10, the Tamilnadu State Election Commission released in gazette the guidelines for preparing the electoral list for the civic polls.
The rules that should be followed in allotting the polling booths, preparing the draft electoral roll and finalising it was also mentioned in the gazette notification.
The newly-delimited wards across the State were notified in the government gazette 15 December 2018. The Delimitation Commission had undertaken the exercise of identifying the wards to be reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women candidates, the Supreme Court was informed earlier this year.
On 4 May, the Tamilnadu government submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that it was not possible to conduct the local body elections now.
In the affidavit, the government had said since the Lok Sabha polls are happening it is not possible to get the electoral rolls from the Election Commission of India and verify it as the officials were busy with the elections.
But in a turnaround, steps are being taken to hold the elections sometime soon.
The State Election Commission in January said the civic polls will be conducted by the last week of May. However, recently the poll body sought three more months to conduct civic polls in Tamilnadu.
Posts in local bodies in the State have been lying vacant since 24 October 2016.