MADURAI: The Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC), through a notification on Friday, announced that the indirect election process to fill the seven vacant chairperson posts in the Madurai City Corporation would be held on September 24.
For the last two months, these posts -- five zonal chairpersons and two standing chairpersons (one each from the taxation and the town planning committees) -- have been lying vacant, in the wake of a multi-crore scam brought to light by an audit in August 2024 that exposed irregularities in property tax assessments.
As per the gazette notification, September 16 is the deadline for the returning officer to issue meeting notices to eligible councillors, followed by a mandatory statutory interval till September 23. The election would be conducted during the meetings convened on September 24.
The 2024 audit prompted the corporation to suspend five bill collectors. Investigators, however, later found that officials had allegedly misused their Urban Tree Information System (UTIS) login credentials to tamper with the property tax data. A criminal case was registered in September 2024 under the then Corporation Commissioner Dinesh Kumar, and the police probe that ensued revealed a large-scale revenue loss for the civic body. It was reported that tax amounts had been reduced for over 150 properties across the city. The investigation also brought certain zonal chairpersons and councillors under scrutiny.
After the controversy, the DMK high command directed all five zonal chairpersons and the two standing committee chairpersons to resign. In July this year, office-bearers Vasuki Sasikumar (Madurai East), Saravana Bhuvaneshwari (Madurai North), Pandi Selvi (Madurai Central), Mugesh Sharma (Madurai South), and V. Suvitha (Madurai West) stepped down, along with K Vijayalakshmi of the Taxation Committee and J Moovendran of the Town Planning Committee.
Party sources indicated that the DMK will select candidates for the posts after the official notices are served; aspirants have yet to express their interest. A former zonal chairperson told TNIE that they had no role in the fraud, but resigned as per the directives from the party. "We have submitted evidence to party leaders and hope we may be considered in the upcoming selection process," said the former office-bearer.