Finally, DMK wins Manapparai Municipal Chairman post

TIRUCHY: After a long fight, the DMK candidate won the Manapparai Municipal Chairman post on Tuesday during the indirect polls.

In the 27-ward Manapparai Municipality, both the DMK alliance and the AIADMK secured 11 each, while independents secured five wards. Since both DMK and AIADMK could not get absolute majority, the party leaders were approaching the independent members and a series of talks were on for their support.

Out of the 27, DMK won in eight, while its allies CPI won in two and Congress in one, while AIADMK won in 11 wards. As all the independent candidates were DMK rival candidates, they all met Local Administration Minister KN Nehru and extended their support to the DMK in the indirect polls for chairperson and the DMK was very confident of winning.

However, there was an unexpected twist during the indirect polls that was held on March 4, as AIADMK candidate Sudha Baskaran (ward 18) secured 15 votes against the DMK candidate A Michael Raj (ward 25) who is also the town secretary of DMK who managed to get 12 votes. Sudha was declared winner.

Subsequently, the election for the vice chairman and other key postings were not conducted as the DMK stayed away from participating in the meetings, which led to the postponement of the indirect polls for three times and so the chairperson Sudha resigned from her post.

In such a backdrop, the indirect election for the Chairman post was held on Tuesday and Michal Raj again contested as the DMK candidate while S Raman (Ward 27) contested as AIADMK candidate in which Michael Raj secured 18 votes and was declared as the Chairman.

CPI town president candidate sit-in protest

Similarly, the president post for Puliyur Town Panchayat in Karur district was allotted to the CPI lone member Kalarani. However, DMK members elected DMK candidate Bhuvaneswari as president. This had created ripples among the CPI leaders and Chief Minister and DMK president MK Stalin asked the DMK candidate to resign.

Again on Tuesday, the DMK members opted for Bhuvaneswari and she was declared as the president by the election officials. Subsequently, the dejected CPI candidate Kalarani staged a sit-in protest in the Town Panchayat office premises. She claimed that the DMK had breached the alliance agreement.