Tamil Nadu election results: AIADMK wins civic polls on own steam

CHENNAI: By the time Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa Jayaram finished answering questions at a Bangalore trial court in a disproportionate assets case, back home the answer was ready as to how good her government performed over the past five months, the AIADMK scored an emphatic victory in the local body elections, this time going it alone.

While some things remained the same as in May, there were surprises too: The DMDK, which snapped its alliance with the ruling party after the assembly election, fared poorly. 'Captain' Vijaykanth's DMDK which had won 29 seats in the assembly polls, embarrassing the Congress which managed only 5 seats, was this time tipped to end up behind Congress when the final numbers were coming in. Even its alliance with CPM did not help the DMDK to match its performance in May.

The ruling party's victory today following Thursday's win in the Trichy (West) assembly by-poll in which it doubled the winning margin in May, is expected to see Jayalalithaa taking a stronger political position in the coming days, as against the uncharacteristically cautious style she adopted in the first five months.

"This victory is owed to one factor, which is Amma's governance over the past five months. This was an election in which each party contested on its own strength, and without any misuse of power, and the AIADMK proved its acceptance among the people across the state", the party's mayoral candidate for Chennai, Saidai Duraisamy told ET.

Political observer Cho Ramaswamy said the result was not a surprise: "The AIADMK has a core voting strength that is a clear five per cent more than the DMK's. Therefore, the result was no surprise given that the DMK is the second party and that it was going alone this time".

The DMK fared better than in the assembly elections when it could manage only 23 seats to AIADMK's 150, and came a respectable second, and the Congress, too, picked up seats across the state. But the AIADMK's victory across the state was in no doubt after it won all five of the first mayoral results announced, and looked poised to make a sweep of all the 10 city corporations.