Tamil Nadu to hold indirect polls to elect heads of urban local bodies

DMK wants to grab all corporations in the western region and has deputed senior ministers to ensure that it reverses its defeat from 8 months ago

For the first time in a decade, newly-elected members will choose mayors, chairman of municipalities, and presidents of town panchayats in Tamil Nadu with the State Election Commission (SEC) planning to conduct indirect elections to the urban local bodies.

The SEC is gearing up to conduct elections to 21 corporations, 138 municipalities and 490 town panchayats in mid-February after a gap of six years. Finalizing the voters’ list, giving finishing touches to the delimitation exercise, and identifying polling booths are being done by the SEC, which might announce the election schedule in a fortnight if Covid-19 does not play spoilsport yet again.

Sources in the SEC told DH that the elections will be held for the post of ward members in all urban local bodies and those elected will decide the head of the urban local bodies.

During its previous rule in 2006, the DMK had conducted indirect elections to the local bodies, in a departure from the past, which was reversed by the AIADMK government in 2011 when the Assembly passed a bill that allowed people to directly elect the heads of urban local bodies. However, in 2016, the AIADMK decided to hold indirect elections, but the polls were deferred.

The elections are likely to be a referendum on the performance of the eight-month-old M K Stalin government which is facing a state-wide poll for the first time after it assumed office. Though political observers say DMK is in the “pole position”, the ruling party is unwilling to take chances, especially in the western region where it lost to the AIADMK-BJP-PMK alliance in the 2021 Assembly polls.

As far as the alliances are concerned, the DMK will be fighting the elections along with Congress, VCK, MDMK, and Left parties. The AIADMK alliance consists of BJPm with PMK walking out a few months back.

DMK wants to grab all corporations in the western region – Salem, Tiruppur, Coimbatore, and Erode – and has deputed senior ministers to ensure that the party reverses the defeat it suffered eight months back. Stalin visited the western region in November and December to announce several key projects and lay the foundation stone for various schemes.

The ruling party is also going all out to win the Nagercoil Corporation as the sitting MLA from the city belongs to the BJP. Senior journalist R Bhagwan Singh said the DMK through indirect elections wants to ensure that the administration “runs smoothly” from Fort St. George, the seat of power of the Tamil Nadu government, to the village level.

“It is a chain reaction. The popularity they (DMK) established while defeating the AIADMK in the Assembly elections was effectively perpetuated by Chief Minister M K Stalin through certain positive administrative decisions despite setbacks like heavy rains and the continuing Covid threat,” Singh said.

“The next logical step would be to ensure that the local bodies are controlled by the DMK using the elected members,” he added.

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