AIADMK on a winning streak, sweeps civic polls

Chennai, Oct 22: In spite of party chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa embroiled in a legal tangle, the AIADMK is continuing its winning streak in the civic polls. After the dream run at the Assembly elections, the party won all the 10 mayoral posts in the state.

Taking a clean sweep at the 10 major cities in the state including Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Erode, Tiruppur, Tirunelvelli, Tiruchirapalli, Tuticorin and Vellore, this would make sure that these cities will now have AIADMK mayors.

With the party enjoying an upper hand at the civic polls, the party is all set to continue their winning streak at the election for chiefs of municipalities and town panchayats as well as the members of those bodies.

In the aftermath of the declaration of results, Jayalalithaa thanked the people for the support shown to her party. She said, “'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 further claimed that 88 people from her party swept the municipality chairman elections and another 284 members are now town panchayat chairmen from the AIADMK.

The AIADMK maintained the lead ahead of rivals like DMK, DMDK and PMK. The DMDK led by actor-turned-politician A. Vijayakant displayed an impressive performance in the polls fighting it out with the support of two Communist parties.

The AIADMK had earlier secured the Tiruchirapalli West assembly constituency after the results were declared there. The polls will elect around 112,000 representatives.

The DMK chief, Karunanidhi had cried foul at the party"s debacle and had pointed fingers at the State Election Commission (SEC) accusing it of partiality. He added that it was not a new phenomenon of the ruling party winning the local body polls.

OneIndia News