AIADMK wins TN civic elections; polls 39.02 pc votes

Chennai: Ruling AIADMK, which put up an impressive show winning all 10 Mayoral posts and a majority of other posts in the recent local body elections, polled 39.02 percent votes in the grass root level trial of strength. DMK, which finished second, secured 26.1 percent while actor-politican Vijayakant’s DMDK garnered 10.11 percent votes in the two-phased polls held last week, according to the statistics released by Tamil Nadu State Election Commission. [caption id=“attachment_116577” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha. PTI”]  [/caption] The percentage has been arrived at taking into account the votes polled by the parties for all civic bodies posts except village panchayat president and village panchayat ward members, the commission said. Independents polled 9.46 percent of the total votes, followed by Congress (5.71 percent) and PMK (3.55 percent). Meanwhile, DMDK, which had fought the polls in alliance with CPI (M) and CPI after they were dumped by their assembly polls ally AIADMK, said it had won 40 percent more seats than its tally in the 2006 civic polls. Also, there was an increase in the number of votes it polled in the civic elections compared to 2006 Assembly polls, and 2009 Lok Sabha polls, which shows that the popularity of the DMDK among people is rising, it added. DMDK, launched in 2005 by the actor as an alternative to the two Dravidian majors DMK and AIADMK, had fought all polls on its own till the last assembly polls when it aligned with the AIADMK. The party had won 29 assembly seats in the  13 April polls, overtaking the DMK to emerge as the principal opposition in the state legislature.