CHENNAI: Immediately after the Supreme Court’s verdict on conduct of local body elections was pronounced, political parties in the State including the ruling AIADMK and the principal opposition party DMK, have swung into action. While Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said the AIADMK would begin the seat-sharing talks with the alliance parties on Friday, the DMK has convened a meeting of the party’s district secretaries, MPs and MLAs on Sunday, to chalk out the strategies for the local body elections.
Describing the SC verdict as historic, the chief minister, at Omalur in Salem district, said the AIADMK would register a massive victory in the local body elections. Responding to a question, Palaniswami said,” It is quite normal for a politician to face the people and win the elections. But out of fear of defeat, the DMK president is speaking about something else.
For the past many years, the DMK has been approaching the court out of this fear. Even now, they did the same but the court thwarted it.” Sources said the AIADMK top brass had told the alliance leaders that the elections would be certainly held this time and the next round of talks would be held in a day or two. Sources also indicated that after the next round of talks, the focus would be shifted to the district level since further consultations on sharing of seats in local bodies will take place at the district level where the local leaders would finalise the seat-sharing.
However, there is scepticism simmering among the functionaries of the parties. Interaction with some senior leaders revealed that they were not totally convinced that the elections would take place. Former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan told reporters, after holding talks with Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam at the AIADMK headquarters, that they had received an invitation for a hurriedly convened meeting and the interaction was cordial.
TMC leader B Gnanadesikan, PMK chief GK Mani and Alagapuram Mohanraj and B Parthasarathy of the DMDK too said the talks were preliminary in nature and they discussed broad outline of the elections. In Chennai, endorsing the chief minister’s view of the SC verdict being a historic one, DMK president MK Stalin said the verdict had protected democracy. He said if the ruling party had the guts, it should face the elections.
Meanwhile, the DMK has convened a meeting of its MPs, MLAs and district secretaries on December 8 (Sunday) to chalk out the strategies for local body elections. At the AIADMK headquarters, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam chaired a meeting of the party functionaries in which State ministers, district secretaries, headquarters secretaries and others, about the candidates to be selected for the grass-roots level local bodies and the measures for the ensuing elections.
SEC meet Chief Secy
Meanwhile, the State Election Commissioner and senior officials of the Commission held discussions with Chief Secretary K Shanmugam at the secretariat on local body elections. The notification issued for December 27 and 30 was cancelled following the Supreme Court verdict.
Since the SC has allowed elections to local bodies in all districts except nine where the DMK has wanted delimitation process to be completed, the SEC was said to have discussed all possibilities including conduct of elections for all local bodies in one phase. Sources said the SEC has convened an urgent meeting of officials of the Commission for Saturday and the fresh notification for elections is likely to be issued in a day or two.