Chennai: With a meeting of district secretaries on February 28, the DMK braces for the local body elections which could be the most keenly watched civic poll battle in the state as the ruling AIADMK is up against the toughest challenge in its over four-decades of existence. DMK general secretary
K. Anbazhagan announced that the meeting to be held on the last day of February would discuss the local body elections and related issues, indicating that the alliance with Congress too is likely to come up for deliberations.
At a time, when the Congress is upping its ante, openly demanding fresh negotiations for the allotment of wards, the DMK functionaries of confident of beating the AIADMK, which is in total disarray and facing internal squabbles even without the national party.
Although, the Congress has the option of joining the AIADMK alliance, the winning chances of Congress candidates in an AIADMK front looks uncertain, while a tie up with the DMK which has a proven vote bank could ensure victory for the alliance candidates, even if the allocation of wards is lesser.
Though, all the Congress leaders want the DMK to part with more wards for the national party, most of the leaders including former Union Minister P. Chidambaram and former TNCC president E.V.K.S. Elangovan are sceptical about the party's chances in case of an AIADMK alliance.
The DMK is aware of the prevailing situation and unlikely to budge up more than a certain degree as it wants to record a massive victory to prove that the ruling AIADMK has lost its popular mandate to govern the state.
This is also a major test for Stalin's popularity and capability since the DMK will not have the guidance or public appearance of party president M. Karunanidhi and the working president will have to carry the party's campaign on his shoulders.
The DMK polled about 39 per cent of votes in the 2016 Assembly elections and the party will be able to score spectacular success even if retained the same vote share, as the ruling party's votes are expected to split. But, the other parties like the PMK, BJP, MDMK and Left are likely to pose problems in their stronghold areas, if they had recovered from the severe blow in the Assembly polls.
