Chennai: In the backdrop of AIADMK and DMK completing the poll post- mortem and party top brass stripping of the key district secretary posts from non-performers in the assembly polls, a fear psychosis has now engulfed the elected mayors and councillors in Tamil Nadu.
Cutting across party lines, municipal chairmen and ward councillors in the state are now a disturbed lot and they have begun the local body poll works early this year, at least two months in advance, confirmed an official source with public election department.
Local body representatives and councillors are now frequenting local election departments seeking details of voters list and the names of those voters who have changed their address.
All these days, only MLAs and district secretaries were hyper active with councillors remaining dormant, the official noted. “Our party leadership has changed four district secretaries in greater Chennai area due to poor assembly results in Chennai and Kancheepuram and this is a perform or perish situation for local body representatives,” said an AIADMK councillor in Central Chennai pointing out that the ruling party is now under compulsion to resurge in Chennai and Kancheepuram.
“Yes, We have started poll works as the government machinery let us down in the recently concluded assembly polls. Cash for votes was rampant, there were so many invalid votes by the government staff and no action was taken against miscreants distributing cash for votes. To counter this, the DMK's south Chennai unit has started poll works early,” said
Ma Subramaniam, Saidapet MLA and DMK south Chennai district secretary.
“During the assembly polls, we noticed that in wards represented by DMK councillors, they have deleted the names of the pro AIADMK voters and we lost harbour and Anna Nagar constituencies in narrow margins and now all these micro issues have to be addressed,” said advocate C.R. Sridhar, an AIADMK functionary.
