- Mohan
- For BBC Tamil
Niveda Commander
The DMK alliance has captured 21 corporations in the urban local government elections held across Tamil Nadu. The DMK has won 96 seats in the Coimbatore municipal elections. The DMK has won 73 seats, the Congress 9, the CBI 4, the CPI (M) 4, the Madhyamaka 3, the Gomdeka 2 and the Mama 1.
The DMK has a simple majority for the post of mayor. In this situation we spoke to the Coimbatore DMK regarding the election results.
“We did not expect the DMK alliance to get such a victory. We thought it would win up to 70 seats. But the fact that the DMK will win only 73 seats is an unexpected victory for us,” DMK officials said.
Handed out WhatsApp groups
Speaking to BBC Tamil on the outcome of the local body elections, the DMK webmaster told Tamilmara, “We are disappointed that the DMK alliance did not win a single seat in the last assembly elections. At the same time, the AIADMK has been overconfident. They fulfilled the basic demands of the people. In Coimbatore, the DMK acted as the people’s representative, “he said.
We created WhatsApp groups called ‘Come Together’ and joined the public in it. We fulfilled their requests quickly. That is why the people of Coimbatore have supported the DMK in the local elections. Just because the ruling party did not vote.
We lost the last assembly election in Kinnathukadavu constituency by a margin of 1,100 votes. But now we have won by a margin of several thousand votes in several corporation wards.
The election is over and we are not going to exhaust all of those groups because we have won. We will continue to work with local representatives. “
The results of the local elections will naturally be in favor of the ruling party. We asked Karthikeya Sivasenapathy of the DMK how the current results differ.
“It is true that the people will elect the ruling party in the local elections. The AIADMK also won 78 seats in the local elections held after the 2011 assembly elections,” he said.
But DMK has now won 96 seats. They should have won at least a handful of seats in Coimbatore, known as the stronghold of the AIADMK. But they won only 3 seats and even lost opposition status. Karthikeya Sivasenapathy says the local body election results are a testament to the score people have given to the DMK regime.
Image source, Bharani Dharan
Clear propaganda Strategy
To what extent did your election campaign pay off? What did you do to win the trust of the voters in Coimbatore?
“We have been collecting votes for Coimbatore in the local election campaign for what we are doing and what we are going to do. The DMK government is taking immediate action to implement the stalled projects.
“Before the Assembly elections, petitions were received from the people and passed under the department of the Chief Minister of your constituency. As well as after the Assembly elections alone, more than 140,000 petitions were received in all the constituencies across Coimbatore in the last eight districts and most of them were settled for the basic needs of the people. The fact that the DMK has been active in the field even though it has no members is one of the main reasons for its success, “said Karthikeyan Sivasenapathy.
The role of Senthil Balaji
The AIADMK daydreamed that the results of the local elections would be in their favor, just like the results of the Assembly elections. But we went in person to all the wards of DMK. Although Minister Senthil Balaji Karur was a Member of the Legislative Assembly, he continued to stay in Coimbatore to oversee not only the welfare schemes of the state but also the work of the party. Campaigned in almost all constituencies. That is one of the reasons why people support DMK so much, “he said.
