CHENNAI: It seems the AIADMK got the short end of the stick in the rural local body polls in seven northern and two southern districts, with the PMK and the AMMK spoiling its prospects. Political pundits had observed before the rural local body election that the decision of the PMK to go it alone in the election would spoil both its own and AIADMK’s prospects, as the latter depended on PMK’s influence among voters in the seven northern districts.
According to sources from Vellore, the PMK didn’t bag the quantum of votes it expected. At the same time, a considerable number of district councillor and union councillor seats would have gone to the AIADMK-led alliance had the PMK stayed in the alliance. Due to last minute cracks in alliance, both the parties had failed to instil confidence in voters, the sources said.
It’s evident from the fact that the Congress candidate for Vellore district councillor ward no 8 bagged 10,783 votes at the end of the third round of counting while the AIADMK candidate secured only 6,731. It’s expected that the Congress candidate will taste the victory by a margin of at least 8,000 votes in the 30,000-vote strong ward.
On the PMK side, the party managed to lead in only ten union councillor seats despite contesting in around 1,000 union councillor seats. If we compare the PMK’s victory in the last rural local body elections for 28 districts (held in December 2019), the party bagged 217 union councillors seats. As such, the available data from the ongoing counting prove that the PMK’s decision to split away from the alliance has backfired big time.
Likewise, TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK managed to display their presence only in two southern districts – Tirunelveli and Tenkasi and the party managed to win two union councillor seats in the districts. On the other hand, according to sources, the party pushed the AIADMK into a distant second place from the DMK candidates in the southern districts by splitting AIADMK votes. Hence, even though they could not bag considerable seats, they became a spoilsport for the AIADMK and pushed the Dravidian major into a defeat.
Though Seeman’s Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) contested in at least 80 per cent of seats in the nine districts they failed to open accounts till 8 pm. Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Neethi Maiam (MNM) had failed to attract its cadre to contest the election in all seats.