Tamil Nadu civic polls: How hyperactive partymen helped Karur Corporation record highest turnout
TIRUCHY: Among all the 21 City Corporations in the State, Karur Corporation topped with a poll percentage of 75.84 in the urban local body polls held on February 19. Also, the district recorded the highest poll percentage of 86.43 under town panchayat category.
Persistent follow-up on voters by functionaries of the two major political parties was seen as the main reason for the success. Another crucial factor was that labourers, who constitute a majority of Karur’s population, were granted paid leave on voting day.
Karur district secretaries for both the DMK and the AIADMK are former ministers - V Senthil Balaji and MR Vijayabhaskar - respectively. According to locals, their working styles were the primary reasons behind the high poll percentage.
Senthilkumar Nagarajan, a political observer said, "Working styles of the politicians in Karur are peculiar and could not be seen in other districts. Both the DMK and the AIADMK assign a functionary of their parties to follow just 100 voters, not only during election time, but also during revision of electoral rolls. They know where those 100 voters live and where they have shifted, if it happens."
"In fact, they memorise those 100 names from the electoral roll along with their addresses. They had been trained to do this for the past elections as well. The close watch, and canvassing result in more voters turning up at the polling booths," he added.
Sharing his experience from Saturday’s polling, he said, "I went to the polling booth with my voter ID. The booth officer asked for the serial number. In a split second, agents of both parties shouted out my serial number from memory."
Another reason for the high turnout, according to the locals, was the active participation of labourer fraternity, especially those working in the mosquito net manufacturing units and textile units. These workers got paid leave on polling day.
V Senthilmurugan, a DMK functionary said, "Our committee is in charge for 1,926 votes. We categorise the voters into three categories - those who live within the ward, outside the ward but within the city limits, and lastly those who live in faraway places. Voters in the first two categories were in majority this time. Though we contacted them over phone often, many voters in the third category failed to turn up."
However, AIADMK functionary Cheran Palanisamy said, "We believe the high turnout was because of growing anger over the ruling party's performance in the last nine months."