Stalin discusses DMK’s preparations with dist heads

Chairing the virtual meeting, Stalin, who is also the president of DMK, was understood to have taken inputs from his district heads vis-à-vis preparations, especially the coordination with allies. If sources in the ruling party are to be believed, the DMK chief has received updates from the district secretaries regarding apportionment of seats for allies.

High on the agenda was also the selection of councilor candidates for the corporations, municipalities, and town panchayats. The ruling party had prepared a tentative list of three probable candidates for each ward and at least a couple of names for indirect mayoral elections.

The DMK chief, sources privy to the meeting said, was also learnt to have elicited the views of the regional bosses on the extent to which the quality of Pongal gift pack distributed since early this month and delay in implementation of five sovereign jewel loan waiver among the schemes have impacted the voters in urban Tamil Nadu.

Information trickling out of Anna Arivalyam suggests that the DMK had remained adamant not to apportion even one of the 21 mayor seats to its ally Congress.

The district secretaries were also reminded of the post-poll goof up ‘suffered’ by the party during the nine-district rural local body polls, which saw the party losing a couple of chairman posts to rival AIADMK despite securing majority. Infighting in the local DMK units over choice of chairman candidate saw the AIADMK win the council chairmanship in a couple of panchayats. The DMK leadership was said to have instructed the district heads to keep it in mind while selecting the councilor candidates.