Chennai: The local body elections to be held in a few months have come in the way of DMK leadership’s resolve to take stringent action against district secretaries, especially those belonging to Kongu region, where the party faced a debacle in the Assembly elections.
The DMK alliance fell short of 20 seats for a majority in the Assembly and the failure in the Kongu belt comprising Salem, Namakkal, Erode, Tirupur, The Nilgiris and Coimbatore is the major reason for the party falling behind the AIADMK in the crucial Assembly race.
The tally of AIADMK in the regions other than the Kongu belt is only 95, while DMK front has won 91 constituencies in those regions. But, in the Kongu region, AIADMK has got 39 out of 46 seats, the DMK obtained only five seats and its ally Congress two. It was the Kongu region, which piloted the AIADMK to power for the second consecutive term and stopped the DMK’s march to victory. The advantage gained by DMK, which won 49 of the 89 seats in the northern region, was totally lost by its Kongu debacle.
The DMK leadership had received numerous complaints from party candidates, who had lost in the Kongu districts, alleging that the district secretaries had not co-operated for their election campaign and in some cases worked against the party’s official candidates or helped AIADMK nominees.
DMK chief M. Karunanidhi has called for an enquiry into the conduct of the district secretaries and already three of them had been removed from their posts.
In Salem, barring the party’s district secretary Rajendran, all the other 10 candidates had lost. The AIADMK won all the eight constituencies in Erode and there are complaints against its district secretary N.K.P.P. Raja, who was denied a seat to contest.
Though, the DMK is said to be weak in the western districts, it had won more seats in the region when the trend was favourable to it in other regions..
After the removal of three district secretaries, partymen are expecting further crackdown on other district secretaries who had erred. But, a section of partymen had expressed apprehensions that such action could dent the party’s chances in the local body elections too.
Four corporations-Coimbatore, Tirupur, Salem and Erode- out of the 12 corporations in the State fall within the Kongu districts and they want to delay the action till the end of civic body polls. The DMK leadership is caught in a dilemma between facing the local body elections too with the same functionaries or going for a shake up just before the civic polls.
