The Hindu : Parties have a lot of time for campaign

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 01, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Parties have a lot of time for campaign

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, FEB. 29. With the Election Commission including Tamil Nadu in the last phase of the poll schedule, political parties in the State have to deal with a strange problem: a lot of time. The May 10 poll, with April 26 as the last date for withdrawal of candidature, leaves the parties with more than two months for electioneering.

As both the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance have been quick to conclude their seat-sharing talks, the difficulty for them will be to keep up the momentum till May first week.

The DMK and the Pattali Makkal Katchi, which have already released their election manifestos, are announcing their candidates tomorrow. The Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam released its list of candidates on February 19. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India too have identified their candidates. The AIADMK has also announced its list of candidates. Indeed, the party general secretary, Jayalalithaa, had drawn up a campaign schedule, spread over 45 days, on February 18 itself, but she decided to wait for the announcement of the election schedule. The BJP State unit has shortlisted its candidates for the six seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone Pondicherry seat the party is contesting this time.

Only the Congress seems to be in the slow mode. The party is nowhere close to identifying the candidates for the ten seats it is contesting in Tamil Nadu. Also, there is no word yet on resolving the dispute over non-allocation of Pondicherry.

The 39 parliamentary constituencies in Tamil Nadu and the lone Pondicherry seat will be among the 182 seats spread across 16 States, which go to the polls on May 10.

According to the Election Commission, there are 49,268,408 voters in the State on January 1, 2003.

Female voters — 25,044,108 — outnumber the male voters — 24, 224, 360. Of this, 23,218 men voters and 9,488 women are listed as service voters.

The poll notification will be issued on April 16 and the last date for filing nominations is April 23.

Scrutiny will be taken up the next day. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is April 26. Counting for all Lok Sabha seats will be taken up on May 13 and the election process has to be completed before May 25.

Byelection to the Mangalore (SC) Assembly will be conducted simultaneously. The vacancy was caused by the resignation of the Dalit Panthers of India general secretary, Thol. Thirumavalavan.

As per the model code of conduct and the Public Property Defacement Act, parties, candidates and advertisers should not deface public property. Violations will be treated as an offence.

Political parties, candidates and advertisers have been asked to remove wall writings, paintings, posters and banners on public property within a week.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu