Official notification will be made soon
Corporation Victoria Hall in Coimbatore. (Photo: DC/File)
Coimbatore:Poll bugles will blare yet again in Coimbatore. Barely two months after the Parliamentary poll mela, the city will soon gear up for another election . This time to choose its first citizen, the new Mayor of Coimbatore.
"The electoral rolls have been released. There are a few more formalities to be completed. We will issue an official notification soon on Mayoral polls for Coimbatore city corporation," State Election Commissioner, S.Ayyar told the DC on Monday. However, the Commission is yet to decide on the election dates, he said.
Official sources in the Coimbatore corporation, however, indicated that the Mayoral polls will be held in October. The Mayoral chair in Coimbatore fell vacant on May 29 this year after the sitting Mayor S.M.Velusamy, once considered the power-centre of Coimbatore, made a sudden, emergency exit. Weeks after the Parliamentary elections, Velusamy's car rammed into a youth and his political career also went crashing. Velusamy was stripped of the ruling AIADMK's Coimbatore urban secretary post on 28 May. A day later, he quietly shed his Mayoral robe too.
As elections have to be held within six months of vacancy period, the State Election Commission is now bracing up to hold the polls. Indications are that it will be one of the dullest poll fair as the ruling AIADMK looks invincible and the Opposition ranks nearly invisible.
In the last Mayoral polls held in October 2011, Velusamy who was then state minister triumphed over DMK's N.Karthik by over 1.27 lakh margin. The victory margin, this time round, may just get bigger, say the AIADMK men. If the friendly BJP too stays off the polls, the AIADMK may just etch a record victory, add the buoyant ruling partymen.
DMK not keen on Mayoral Election:
Wracked by the tug-of-war at the top leadership of the DMK, the party councillors in Coimbatore are in no mood to even show lukewarm interest in the impending Mayoral polls. In better times, the DMK would have flexed its electoral muscle and put up a strong show of strength. But these are not the best of times for the party faced reeling under leadership tussle and a series electoral blows.
"What is the point in contesting? Anyways, AIADMK will win. Do we have a chance?" asks a woman councillor in the DMK. The "defeatist" chorus runs through the rank and file of the party. The DMK functionaries, who are considered loyalists of the party leader M.K.Stalin are more keen on "reinforcing the strength of Thalapathi Stalin" in the party. "We want to show the real strength of Thalapathy in the party's organisational elections rather than fritter away energies on the Mayoral polls. We would reserve our strength for the 2016 Assembly polls," said another senior functionary of the DMK.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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