CHENNAI: Most of the DMK’s alliance partners are disappointed as they’ve received a meagre allocation of civic chief posts despite bagging a relatively high number of councillor seats. However, they have accepted their share, saying it’s more important to unitedly fight the BJP. The Congress has got only one mayoral post out of 21, while other partners have been given just one deputy mayor post each.
The indirect elections — for 21 mayors, 138 municipality chairpersons, and 435 town panchayat posts — are slated for Friday. Expressing disappointment, Congress State general secretary GK Muralidharan said, “When we contested the 2011 local body elections alone, we bagged 24 town panchayat president posts. But now, we were given only eight. The DMK greatly benefited from our vote share, but now enjoys more civic chief posts.”
But the chemistry among cadre is more important than arithmetic, he pointed out, hinting that the DMK’s ‘big brother’ attitude in allocating seats would upset Congress functionaries, and in turn affect the alliance in upcoming elections.
A district in-charge of the MDMK, meanwhile, expressed helplessness. “We accepted the seat allocation since we have no option. But this is not the way to treat allies. When we asked for two MP seats in the 2019 general election, we were assured that more would be given in the Assembly election, but the promise was not kept, and they again assured us that our demands would be fulfilled in the local body elections... We are together only for the ‘secular’ tag and anti-BJP ideology.”
Leaders of Left parties too said they are disappointed at the allocation. “Soon after the DMK high-command released the list of civic chiefs and deputies, the party’s district functionaries started urging us to give up our allocated seats,” a CPM leader from the Delta districts said. He also feared that most town panchayat seats allocated to Left parties wouldn’t be bagged by them since ground-level functionaries and elected councillors wouldn’t extend their support. CPI functionaries echoed this sentiment.
However, VCK Assembly floor leader M Sinthanai Selvan felt differently. “The seat allocation is better than in previous years. Hence, the VCK is happy.” DMK organising secretary RS Bharathi said seats have been allocated after elaborate discussions, and the hiccup would be settled on Friday.