Tamil Nadu permits political and religious gatherings ahead of polls in 2021

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday announced that public meetings for political, religious, sports and cultural occasions would be allowed in the open with 50% capacity from December 19.

Chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami said that organisers would have to take prior permission from district authorities to conduct these events, in a statement to the press.

The State is set to go to polls next year and regional parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) have already begun campaigning.


In the case of the BJP, for instance, which is an ally of the ruling AIADMK, permission was denied for the State-wide Vetri Vel yatra that the party had planned. The State government had earlier denied permission for the same owing to the pandemic leading to speculation that the alliance was on shaky ground. However, with Home Minister Amit Shah's visit last month, it was publicly declared that the parties would indeed continue with their alliance.

The announcement of these relaxations comes a day after the State's higher education department ordered colleges and universities to conduct testing on their campuses and hostels after one of the largest clusters was formed at IIT-Madras. This cluster was formed soon after the educational institutions were allowed to function from December 7.

Eight more residents of IIT-Madras were found to be Covid-19 positive on Wednesday, taking the total tally of cases at the premier institute to 191.

Owing to the formation of this cluster, the Greater Chennai Corporation had begun aggressive testing at the Anna University campus on Tuesday where six of 550 people tested were positive.

As of Tuesday, the State has seen 8,01,161 Covid-19 cases and the death toll has touched 11,919 with 779,291 people being discharged.