CHENNAI: As the trends stand on Thursday night, it was a tight race between the AIADMK and DMK in the rural local body polls. With the vote counting delayed for reasons including failure to provide food for the booth staff, it is expected that the final tally will be available only by Friday.
Both DMK and AIADMK alternatively took the lead position throughout the day. But since results were declared only in about one-fourth of the seats, one has to wait till Friday evening to know which of the alliance has fared well. The vote counting was also largely peaceful expect a few stray incidents.
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If the trends continue to be similar on Friday, both DMK and AIADMK will have something to cherish. The DMK can boast that it put up a decent show despite the ruling party having the advantage of control over the state administration. The AIADMK can claim that it has reversed its fortunes compared to the results of the Lok Sabha polls and it is due to the leadership of the Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami.
Meanwhile, the DMK president, MK Stalin, accused the State Election Commission of delaying the declaration of results in seats where the DMK won. Soon after Stalin submitted a petition on this to the State Election Commissioner R Palaniswamy, the party also moved the Madras High Court with the same accusation and wanted the court to have an urgent hearing.
The court agreed to hear the matter and posted it before a single member bench of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and the arguments commenced at around 9 pm. The DMK’s counsel alleged that the certificates were not issued by the election officers in many of the places where the DMK candidates won and that there are plans to replace the ballot boxes on Thursday night.
The party argued that CCTV cameras were not installed in many booths. The state election commission’s counsel argued that the DMK is making general allegations without giving any particular details. The commission’s counsel submitted that for instance results were declared in 30 percent of the seats in Salem.
AIADMK, poll body refute DMK’s allegations
After hearing the arguments on both the sides, the court adjourned hearing in the case to Friday and directed the state election commission to file a detailed affidavit by 4 pm on Friday as to the manner in which the counting process was being conducted, declaration of results, requests made for re-counting and recordings of CCTV cameras.
The AIADMK condemned accusations of the DMK. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, went into a huddle with senior functionaries of the party AIADMK headquarters and discussed the outcome of the elections. Talking to reporters after the meeting, party spokesperson C Ponnaiyan charged that the DMK was trying to create confusion by levelling allegations against the State Election Commission.
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The State Election Commissioner R Palaniswamy denied the accusation made by DMK leader Stalin and said that the Commission was discharging its duties in a free and fair manner. Palaniswamy also explained that the declaration of results were bound to be time-consuming because of the lengthy counting process and that every step of counting was being done in the presence of agents of all political parties.
“Counting will go on during the whole night on Thursday and we expect that the counting process will be completed on Friday. There was no wanton delay in declaring the result at any place.” In this connection, the SEC pointed out that the results for Melpuram panchayat union in Kanyakumari district where Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used for the first time, much earlier in the day.
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He also said 16,000 CC cameras have been installed in the 315 counting centres to videograph the entire process and over one lakh officials have been engaged in counting votes. Besides, 1,890 micro observers were also monitoring the elections.
‘Murder of democracy’
DMK president MK Stalin visited the poll panel office for the second time around 11.30 pm. He later told reporters that in places where the DMK candidates had won, results were delayed and AIADMK candidates were later declared winner, which is “murder of democracy”.