PUDUKKOTAI: In what could be a shock to the DMK chief MK Stalin, the party, despite having majority councilors, lost to the AIADMK in the indirect elections for the Pudukkottai district panchayat on Saturday. In another twist, the District Vice President Post went to the Congress party which had just 2 councilors .
In the 22 district panchayat wards, DMK had won in 11, Congress in 2, which gave the alliance a comfortable total of 13. While AIADMK has 8 councillors, its ally Tamil Maanila Congress has one councilor.
However, when the result was announced after the indirect election, AIADMK surprisingly got 12 votes and DMK got only 10. This has handed the district panchayat president post to the AIADMK. DMK announced Kalaivani Subramanian as its presidential candidate. In an unexpected turn of events, AIADMK candidate Jayalakshmi, from Ward 8, has become the district panchayat president.
This meant that three members from the DMK alliance had cross-voted. Following this, the DMK senior leaders swung into action and took away all 13 councilors of its coalition in a van before the indirect voting for the vice-president post took place.
According to party sources, DMK leaders have been grilling all the councilors to find out the three 'black sheep' who cross-voted. As the voting was done in a secret ballot, it was hard for them to find out who exactly voted for the AIADMK.
A DMK functionary said "As we were having majority councilors, the district level leaders were not worried about the district panchayat president post. While they were indulging in activities to capture the union panchayats where we lacked majority, the AIADMK leaders lured away some of our district councilors. MK Stalin has to take strict action against those who have cross-voted."
There was a scuffle at the spot when the DMK functionaries who gathered there started accusing some of the councilors of selling out for cash and betraying the party. Police had to intervene to bring the situation under control.
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Before the DMK recovered from the shock of losing the district panchayat president's post, it had to undergo another major shocker-as the district vice president post went to the Congress party's Uma Maheshwari.
There was a buzz among the local politicos that the two Congress councillors had allegedly supported the AIADMK for the district president's post and in turn, AIADMK supported the Congress for the vice president's post.