Landslide win for DMK alliance in Tamil Nadu local body elections

Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its alliance partners on Tuesday registered a landslide win in the elections to urban local bodies held on February 19, decimating the principal opposition party AIADMK.

The DMK captured all 21 municipal corporations in the state, leaving none to the AIADMK, which was relegated to a distant third in at least two dozen wards in the capital city of Chennai. In these wards, the BJP, which contested alone, secured the second position. Of the 138 municipalities, the DMK and its allies are likely to take nearly 120 of them, while the ruling party secured over 80 per cent of the town panchayats.

Overall, the DMK alliance won over 85 per cent of the 12,801 wards that went to polls on February 19, securing over 50 per cent of the total votes polled – the scale of the victory was much larger than the combined secured in May 2021 assembly elections.

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“I thank the people of Tamil Nadu for the massive victory they have handed over to us in the urban local body elections. The results, in my opinion, is a recognition of the Dravidian Model of governance. We have been working for the people for the last nine months and these results will help us do it with renewed vigour,” Chief Minister and DMK chief M K Stalin said.

The elections were billed as the first popularity test for the DMK after it came to power in May 2021.

The icing on the cake, for the DMK, was capturing 'Kongu Bastion' (western Tamil Nadu) from the AIADMK. DMK made winning the region, which let down the party in the 2021 assembly polls, a prestige issue by deputing Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji against AIADMK strongman S P Velumani – the ruling party won almost all local bodies in the district.

The AIADMK was struggling, in a serious setback to the party that ruled the state for three decades – it also lost the municipality and corporation in areas where party leaders O Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami belong to.

BJP won more seats than it secured in 2011 local body polls, though the majority of the party’s victory in town panchayat wards come from the Kanyakumari district, where it has had a presence for some time now. In Chennai, the BJP surprised everyone as its candidate Uma Anandhan, known for her controversial remarks on Nathuram Godse, won, becoming the first BJP representative to enter the Greater Chennai Corporation.

Accepting “people’s verdict”, the AIADMK accused the DMK of indulging in “malpractices” to win the municipal elections. “Had the elections been free and fair, the AIADMK would have won comfortably. This setback is temporary,” Panneerselvam said in a statement.

BJP state chief K Annamalai termed the party’s performance as “unprecedented “as it has won in areas where “we haven’t had a public representative before.” He also claimed BJP was officially the third-largest party after DMK and AIADMK in the state.

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