Dravidian majors edge out allies in indirect polls

Barring a few seats, where election could not be conducted for various reasons, the DMK and AIADMK captured majority of seats leaving a miniscule number of seats for the alliance partners. The dismal performance of the allies was evident from the data released by the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC), according to which AIADMK won 13 out of 26 district panchayat chairman seats and DMK won 12 out of 13 remaining seats leaving a single seat for PMK. In the election for district panchayat vice chairman posts, the DMK won 11 seats and AIADMK won 7 seats.

PMK is the only alliance party to get a single seat in district panchayat chairman election and three seats in district panchayat vice chairmen elections. In the election for district panchayat union chairman post, AIADMK won 140 seats and DMK won 125 seats out of total 287. The third best party was PMK which won 7 seats.

The same trend was visible in the election for district panchayat union vice chairman post where DMK and AIADMK together captured 201 out of 273 seats.

Performance of alliance parties in both DMK and AIADMK camp was miserable except for PMK which could garner some respect among the allies.

However, according to political experts their performance too declined when compared to the Lok Sabha elections, conducted in May last year.

“The DMK and AIADMK completely dominated their alliance partners. Though PMK came as third largest party, their performance has dwindled when compared to the previous Lok Sabha elections where they secured more than 5.5 per cent, but now in the local body elections, they secured only 2.8 per cent of votes,” political analyst Raveenthran Duraisamy, told DT Next.

He also said that both Congress and BJP drew a blank as their vote share was lesser than 2 per cent.

The direct elections for rural local bodies was conducted in two phases in December.

The election was conducted for four posts of district panchayat members, district panchayat union ward members, panchayat presidents and panchayat ward members.

Following the direct election, the indirect election was conducted for the posts of district panchayat chairman, district panchayat vice chairman, district panchayat union chairman and district panchayat union vice chairman.