Chennai: The high-octane election campaign for Tamil Nadu Urban Local Body elections ended at 6 pm today. A total of 57,778 candidates are contesting the elections for 12,604 posts in 649 urban local bodies that include 21 corporations, 138 municipalities, and 490 town panchayats. The urban local body polls will take place on February 19 in a single phase, while the counting of votes will take place on February 22.
According to the Tamil Nadu Election Commission (TNEC), it received 74,416 nominations. Of this, a total of 14,701 candidates face election for corporation ward members, while 23,354 candidates contest for municipal ward member posts. A total of 36,361 candidates are in the fray for town panchayat ward posts. About 16,638 candidates had withdrawn their nominations.
A total of 1,57,158 polling booths will be set up in the corporations, while 7,417 polling booths will be set up in the municipalities. Further, town panchayats will have 8,454 polling stations. In total, there will be 31,029 polling booths out of which 5,794 polling stations have been set up in the Chennai corporation alone.
1,37,06,793 male voters and 1,42,45,637 female voters along with 4324 transgenders will cast their ballots in this election. Moreover, 1.33 lakh government staff will be involved in the electoral process. As far as security arrangement is concerned, about 80,000 policemen will be deployed for the elections.
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Elections for corporations, municipalities and town panchayat ward member posts are conducted through electronic voting machines. About 55,337 control units and 1,06,121 ballot boxes have been inspected and are ready for use by the Electronics Corporation of India for voting. Some of the issues that dominated the campaign were NEET, hijab, giving Rs 1,000 to the head of the family.
During the AIADMK campaigns, party joint convenor Edappadi K Palanisamy and convenor O Panneerselvam questioned DMK promises like NEET exemption giving thousand rupees to the head of the family. Similarly, DMK youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, Lok Sabha member Kanimozhi slammed the BJP's low-level politics over the hijab issue and Ariyalur girl suicide and promised that the family head would be paid 1,000 rupees soon after the election.
