The voter for the local body elections will be a very confused person, surrounded by a dozen and more candidates from different parties tugging at his vote.
The two main political formations, one led by the ruling AIADMK and the other by its archrival DMK, seem split up for the October poll to fill 1.32 lakh seats in the urban and rural local bodies, including nine city corporations.
The Congress is orphaned after its UPA partner DMK announced going alone. Congress has mayors in Tiruchy and Coimbatore. In the DMK camp, the VCK is holding its executive meet on Friday and all indications are that the influential dalit party would fight the poll on its own.
Another DMK ally, the PMK, too has been left high and dry, with its chief Dr S. Ramadoss issuing an appeal to ‘like-minded parties’ to drum up an alternative to both the Dravidian majors, under him of course.
The DMK on Thursday announced most of its candidates. Its president M. Karunanidhi is unable to complete the list because some of his regional satraps, such as former ministers K.N. Nehru and K. Ponmudy are in jail for alleged land-grabbing while Veerapandi S. Arumugam has come out on bail only a couple of days back. He needs to consult these seniors, besides his Madurai prince, M.K. Alagiri.
“We are contesting alone only because we are so confident of winning. However, we may enter into some local adjustments in a few places with our erstwhile allies,” says Mr Karunanidhi.
Equally confident is chief minister Jayalalithaa of her AIADMK scoring big in the October poll. Her team of negotiators—ministers O. Panneerselvam, K.A. Sengottaiyan and Natham R. Viswanathan—has been talking to both the Left parties.
“We are hopeful of a reasonable share of seats. We are insisting on getting our sitting seats, at least”, says CPI deputy secretary G. Palanichamy. It is said that the Marxists are pretty upset, but then they cannot complain after pegging their ambitions so high: three mayor posts, plus.
Captain is the biggest enigma in all this. His DMDK has not yet got the call from senior partner, the AIADMK. Sources say that Vijayakanth is likely to settle for “whatever Amma gives rather than field candidates on his own and lose”.
