AIADMK sweeps Tamil Nadu civic polls
October 22nd, 2011 - 12:34 am ICT by IANSChennai, Oct 21 (IANS) Six months after it won the assembly elections, the AIADMK Friday swept the two-phased Tamil Nadu civic polls by winning all the 10 mayoral posts in the state.
The 10 major cities in the state - Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Erode, Tiruppur, Tirunelvelli, Tiruchirapalli, Tuticorin and Vellore — would have AIADMK mayors.
The party was also set to win a majority of the chiefs of municipalities and town panchayats as well as the members of those bodies.
In a statement issued here, AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Miniser J. Jayalalithaa thanked the people for giving her party a massive support in the polls.
“I believed that the election results would reflect how you have weighed this government. My belief has turned out to be true and the results are as expected by me,” she said.
According to her, 88 of the party candidates won the municipality chairman elections while 284 town panchayat chairmen are from the party.
Counting of votes cast in the two-phased polls held on Oct 17 and Oct 19 began at 822 places across the state Friday morning.
The AIADMK shot into the lead early in a majority of the places and continued to extend its lead over rivals like the DMK, DMDK and PMK.
The elections saw all the major political parties in the state — AIADMK, DMK and Congress — contesting alone while the DMDK fought with the support of two Communist parties.
The DMDK, founded by actor-turned-politician A. Vijayakant, had fought the assembly elections with the AIADMK and won 29 seats to become the second largest party in the 234 member assembly.
This time, however, things were different. Though Vijayakant and his wife campaigned across the state, the party fared poorly.
The polls will elect around 112,000 representatives.
On Thursday, the AIADMK had won the by-poll held in Tiruchirapalli West assembly constituency.
Reacting to AIADMK’s landslide victory in the civic polls, DMK president and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi accused the State Election Commission (SEC) of partiality. He also said the party ruling the state winning the local body polls was nothing new.
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- DMDK fields its own mayoral candidates - Sep 23, 2011
- Jayalalithaa confident of AIADMK victory in civic polls - Oct 17, 2011
- Tamil Nadu civic polls: First phase ends - Oct 17, 2011
- Tamil Nadu civic polls: Second phase ends - Oct 20, 2011
- Jayalalithaa regrets aligning with DMDK for assembly polls - Feb 01, 2012
- DMDK, CPI-M tie up for Tamil Nadu local polls - Sep 27, 2011
- Jayalalithaa, DMDK trade barbs (Lead) - Feb 01, 2012
- CPI to fight Tamil Nadu local polls with DMDK - Sep 28, 2011
- AIADMK announces deal with DMDK, new list of candidates - Mar 21, 2011
- 'Captain' Vijayakant's men jump DMDK ship - Feb 07, 2012
- Vijayakant suspended from Tamil Nadu assembly (Lead) - Feb 02, 2012
- AIADMK in seat-sharing deal with Muslim party - Feb 20, 2011
- Norms being flouted in Tamil Nadu civic polls: DMK - Oct 17, 2011
- Polling ends in Tamil Nadu's Trichy West, Puducherry's Indira Nagar - Oct 13, 2011
Tags: actor turned politician, assembly elections, chairmen, civic polls, coimbatore, communist parties, constituency, dmdk, friday morning, general secretary, j jayalalithaa, landslide victory, madurai, massive support, mayors, member assembly, panchayat, panchayats, party candidates, tuticorin