Chennai, Jan 29(BPNS)
With Tamil Nadu going for Urban local body elections on February 19th, the state unit of the BJP will demand 30 percent of the total seats from the AIADMK. The seat-sharing between the BJP and AIADMK will commence on Sunday.
It may be noted that the BJP had demanded 30 percent seats in the rural local body elections to the nine districts held in October 2021 but the party did not get the requested percentage of seats and its performance in the rural local body polls was below par also. However, sources in the BJP told IANS that the party will demand more seats citing the presence of four MLA’s it has in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly and is likely to demand five corporation Mayor posts. Interestingly sources in the AIADMK pooh-poohed the claims and a senior leader told BPNS that the AIADMK will part with a maximum of 10 percent of the seats to the saffron party and nothing more.
Meanwhile, BJP election in charge and former Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan told BPNS that the party would be announcing its candidates after January 31 and will file nominations by the next couple of days. He said that the party is conducting interviews of the candidates and that the party-state president, K. Annamalai would announce the name of the party candidates.
In a party meeting held at the state headquarters in Chennai on Friday evening, there were however divergent opinions on whether the party go it alone in the urban local body polls.
A senior leader of the party who does not want to be named while speaking to BPNS said, “ The BJP is a political party with a pan India presence and we should try and experiment fighting the elections on our own. Anyways the ruling DMK alliance will win a majority of seats, given the fact that the party is in power in the state and BJP has a golden opportunity to understand our strength at the grassroots level which can be used as a barometer for further seat-sharing talks. However, a major section wants to continue the alliance with AIADMK as the comfort zone is there.”
It may be noted that in certain pockets the BJP has more than 10 percent of the vote share while in almost all the constituencies of the state except a few, the BJP has a voter share of more than 4 percent of the vote share.
