Maintaining its winning streak in nine districts forming the central region, the front led by the ruling DMK handed a severe drubbing to the AIADMK and achieved a near total sweep of all four corporations, 23 municipalities and 71 town panchayats on Tuesday.
Riding the crest of a wave, the DMK-led alliance wrested control of the Tiruchi and Thanjavur corporations from the AIADMK and sailed to a comfortable majority in the new corporations of Karur and Kumbakonam.
In Tiruchi, the DMK and its allies won 59 out of the 65 seats. The AIADMK, which had won 42 seats in the 2011 elections, won just three seats. The DMK candidates, including former Deputy Mayor M. Anbazhagan, who is the party’s probable mayoral candidate, won in 49 wards. Congress candidates won all the five wards allotted to the party, while the MDMK won two seats. The VCK, the CPI and the CPI(M) bagged one ward each.
Of the 51 wards in Thanjavur, the DMK won 36, the Congress two, the CPI(M) and the VCK one each. The AMMK and the BJP also won a ward each. The AIADMK won seven wards and the Independents two. In the 48-member Kumbakonam corporation council, the DMK and its allies emerged victorious in 42 wards. The DMK won 37 seats, the Congress two and the VCK, the IUML and the CPI(M) one each. The AIADMK won just three wards and the Independents won three .
It was a complete rout for the AIADMK in Karur, the hometown of Electricity Minister V. Senthilbalaji, who is considered to have played a key role in the ruling party’s ascension in the western belt. The DMK won 202 of the 246 seats in the district, including 42 of the 48 wards in the Karur corporation. The ruling party won all the three municipalities and eight town panchayats in the district.
The DMK-led alliance swept all urban local bodies in Tiruvarur district, winning 145 of the 215 wards. The DMK secured a majority in the municipalities of Tiruvarur, Mannargudi, Thiruthuraipoondi and Koothanallur. It won the Mayiladuthurai, Pudukottai, Aranthangi, Perambalur, Jayamkondam, Nagapattinam and Vedaranyam municipalities in the region.
In all, the DMK and its allies secured a comfortable majority in 19 municipalities across the region and were evenly matched with the AIADMK in the Ariyalur, Manapparai and Pattukottai municipalities. In Sirkazhi, they reached the half-way mark. But in all these municipalities, the Independents, some of them DMK rebels, are expected to tilt the balance in favour of the ruling party.
AMMK win
Interestingly, T T.V. Dhinakaran's Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) pulled off a surprise, winning a majority in the Orathanadu town panchayat in Thanjavur district. The party candidates won nine of the 15 wards, leaving three each to the DMK and the AIADMK.
The AIADMK managed a slender majority over its arch rival by just one seat in a couple of town panchayats such as the Annavasal and Talaignayiru in Pudukottai and Nagapattinam districts respectively. In the Thittacherry town panchayat in Nagapattinam district, eight of the 15 seats were won by the Independents. Barring these blips, the DMK-led front reigned supreme in the town panchayats, too, in the region.
