Landslide win in Delta, DMK takes all 4 city corporations

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) recaptured the Chennai corporation after a decade as the ruling party swept the urban local body elections, the results of which were announced on Tuesday.

While DMK won 153 seats, AIADMK, which swept the Chennai Corporation election by winning 168 seats in 2011, has secured only 15 seats. In the 2011 election, DMK won only 24 seats.

Other parties, which contested in alliance with DMK, won 25 seats. While Congress won in 13 wards, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and CPI (M) won four wards each and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam won two wards. CPI and IUML won one seat each. In total, the DMK alliance has won 178 seats out of 200 wards.

Apart from these parties, BJP and AMMK, who contested alone secured one ward each. Five independent candidates also won.

DMK contested in 167 wards while its ally Congress contested in 16 wards. VCK contested in six wards while CPM contested in five wards. CPI, MDMK contested in three wards each. On the other hand, AIADMK contested in 198 wards.

The result revealed that 14 out of 15 wards won by AIADMK are in extended zones such Tiruvottiyur, Manali, Madhavaram, Ambattur, Valasaravakkam, Alandur, Perungudi, and Sholinganallur. The party won one ward in the Adyar zone, which is a core city zone. Five wards that are won by independent candidates are also in extended zones.

Except ward 134, which is won by BJP, all the other wards in the core city zones have been secured by DMK and its alliance.

Ironically, the city’s oldest candidate Kamatchi Subramaniam, who is 94 years of age, has secured only 460 votes in ward 174. DMK won the ward where 11,271 voters were polled.

The elected candidates will take oath as Chennai Corporation councillors on March 2 and the councillors will elect the city’s first woman Mayor on March 4 through an indirect election.

Winner of Anna Medal For Gallantry on Republic Day, who had saved residents of a slum board building that collapsed in Tiruvottiyur has been elected from ward 10.

TM Thaniyarasu of DMK was given a ticket to contest in ward 10 after helping at least 60 residents from a collapsing building in Tiruvottiyur a few weeks ago. Thaniyarasu functioned as a councillor of Tiruvottiyur municipality before it was appended with the Chennai Corporation.

Of the total 8,982 votes polled in the ward, Thaniyarasu secured 6,124 votes. He defeated the AIADMK candidate by a margin of around 4,800 votes.

In January, Thaniyarasu found cracks on the building and immediately asked the residents to vacate the building. After the residents vacated, the building collapsed in less than 5 minutes.

Even though the DMK alliance swept the wards in the core city zones, Uma Anandhan of BJP won ward 134 in the Kodambakkam zone, a core city zone. She will be the lone BJP councillor in Chennai Corporation Council.

Uma Anandhan has been in limelight before the polling for her controversial speeches against Dravidian idol EVR Periyar and other Dravidian ideologues. In an interview to a YouTube channel, Uma Anandhan, who won against a Congress candidate with a margin of around 2,000 votes, described herself as an ideological granddaughter of Nathuram Godse, hanged for assassinating Mahatma Gandhi. She proclaimed herself as Godse’s supporter.

This is the first time that the BJP won in the Chennai Corporation election without being in any alliance.