Chennai, Oct 14 (BPNS)
The results of the rural local body polls to the nine districts of Tamil Nadu have given a thumping victory to the DMK and its allies with the ruling front winning 138 out of the 140 district panchayat union seats. The AIADMK, the main opposition could satisfy itself with only 2 seats and after the 2021 assembly results wherein it lost out to the DMK, the rural local body polls results gave it a major drubbing.
The DMK front also proved its worth in the panchayath union councilor post also winning 1021 seats out of the 1380 seats with the AIADMK getting only 214 seats.
Interestingly the third front or rather the political parties like Makkal Needhi Maiam( MNM) of Kamal Haasan, Naam Tamilar Katchi (NTK) of actor, director Seeman, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) of TTV Dhinakaran, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) of Dr. S. Ramadoss, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) of actor turned politician Vijayakant fared poorly in the elections.
While none of these parties who were aspiring to become independent forces in Tamil Nadu and to develop a third front in the state was absolutely rejected by the people of the state. Except for the PMK winning 47 councillor seats, AMMK winning four seats, and DMDK winning 1 seat, the rest of the parties drew a blank. Both NTK of Seeman and MNM of Kamal Haasan failed miserably in the polls as they could not get a single seat.
Political analyst and Professor of a private college in Chennai, Dr Uma Maheshwari while speaking to BPNS said,” The drubbing by the people of these vote splitters is a clear message. Either they are part of a Dravidian movement or else perish. Independent political parties cannot survive in Tamil Nadu and they can exist only as a coalition partner of either of the major parties, DMK or AIADMK.”
All the political parties had before the run up to the elections had expressed high confidence in their winning prospects but the results proved something different.
C. Rajeev of Centre for Policy and Development Studies, a think tank based out of Chennai while speaking to BPNS said, “It is high time leaders of these political parties including Kamal Haasan understand that unless a party doesn’t have a proper electoral policy and a manifesto, people will not support them. Even the seats won by these parties may be due to the performance of their individual leaders due to his/her influence in the locality rather than attributing to the policies and programmes of these parties. People of Tamil Nadu are highly literate as far as elections are concerned and they will teach betrayers a lesson and those ready for vote-splitting will also be shown their place and this has exactly what happened in this polls.”
If these political parties do not rework their strategies, then in the near future, they will lose their relevance in the politics of Tamil Nadu where two fronts are vying against each other for the people’s mandate.
