Puducherry, Political parties here are gearing up themselves to face the local body election in the Union Territory after a gap of 10 years.

It may be noted that for about 38 years local body elections were not held after 1968 and it was held in 2006.

The tenure of the elected representatives ended in July 2011.

Mr Perumal a CPI(M) functionary moved the Madras High Court against the government for not taking initiatives to hold local body election and the Court directed the government to hold the same.

However, one Ananthalakshmi filed a petition before the Madras High Court praying that ward delimitation be held on the basis of 2011 census and reservation for women and the Court ordered to hold the poll after completing all the formalities.

Meanwhile, one Balaji moved the Supreme Court against the decision to hold election and the Apex Court taking note that local body election was not held for long, ordered to hold it within four months.

Following this, Mr.Roy P Thomas was appointed as the State Election Commissioner and works for the election was speeded up.

The Municipal and commune panchayats wards were delimited on the basis of population. There are five municipalities,10 commune panchayat and 98 village panchayats in the UT.

In the delimitation, the number of wards in the Puducherry Municipality came down to 33 from 42, and the number of wards in the Oulgaret Municipality rose to 42 from 37 wards.

Though, political parties objected to the reduction of wards, the State Election Commission unmindful of anything is going ahead with its work and the draft voters list for Municipalities and Commune Panchayats were released and the final list will be published on June 28.

With this, political parties also started preparatory works to face the local body election and the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) is in the process of appointing party Presidents for Municipality and Commune Panchayats.

Other parties are also in the process of preparatory works to face the local body election.

(Agencies)