The defeat in the Tamil Nadu urban local body elections is likely to call for a change of leadership in the AIADMK.
At present, the party is being jointly led by former Chief Ministers O Panneerselvam and Edappadi K Palaniswami.
In the 2011 urban local body elections, the AIADMK had won around 50 per cent of the seats, but in the elections held after a gap of 11 years, it could manage to secure only 15 per cent.
Voting for the urban local body elections was held on February 19 for a total of 12,838 seats in 21 corporations, 138 municipalities and 489 nagar panchayats. According to the State Election Commission, the AIADMK has won 164 councilor seats (11.94%) in nagar panchayats, 638 seats in municipality wards (16.80%) and 1,206 seats (15.82%) in nagar panchayats.
Since its defeat in the 2019 general elections, the party lost in the 2020 rural local body elections, the 2021 assembly elections and the 2021 rural local body elections in nine new districts of Tamil Nadu and suffered heavy losses in the urban elections. February 19, is what the AIADMK leadership cannot hide under the carpet.
The AIADMK, which won resounding victories from the western Kongu belt including Coimbatore, Salem and Erode, failed miserably in these strongholds. The party also suffered heavy defeats in former Chief Minister Palaniswami’s home district of Salem and Ward 23 of the Salem Municipal Corporation, where Palaniswami resides.
The party’s chief coordinator and former chief minister Panneerselvam’s home district Theni also lost to the DMK-led alliance.
Speaking to IANS, Dr R Padmanabhan, a political analyst and Director of the Socio-Economic Development Foundation, a think tank from Madurai, said, AIADMK has lost and has been losing elections continuously since the 2019 general elections.
It needs improvement as the dual leadership of Panneerselvam and Palaniswami has failed miserably and the party needs a change in power. Stalin has emerged powerful and his administration in the last nine months as chief minister has touched all aspects of public life and the results give him the seal of authority. Meanwhile, the opposition has to take immediate steps to stay alive in Tamil Nadu politics.
With the election results giving clear advantage to DMK across Tamil Nadu, all strongholds of senior AIADMK leaders, including former ministers, the only way out for AIADMK is to go back to the grassroots level and build the party out of brick. , she added.
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